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THEOLOGICAL    ESSAYS 


AND  OTHER  PAPERS. 


BY 


THOMAS    DE    QUINCEY, 


ADTHOa   OP 


'  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER,'  ETC.  ETC. 


IN    TWO    VOLUMES. 
VOL.    I. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR,    REED,    AND   FIELDS. 


MDCCCLIV. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1654,  by 
TiCKNOR,    R£ED,    AND   FlELDS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


boston: 
Thurston,  Torry,  &  Emerson,  Printers. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I. 

ON  CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN  OF  POLITICAL 
MOVEMENT     1 

PROTESTANTISM 63 

ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL    EXPRESSION 
FOR  ETERNITY 12r 

JUDAS  ISCARIOT 147 

ON  HUME'S  ARGUMENT  AGAINST  MIRACLES  .     .  179 

CASUISTRY 203 

GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS 273 


ON  CHRISTIAx^ITY, 

AS    AN   ORGAN  OF  POLITICAL   MOVEMENT. 

[1846.] 

Forces,  which  are  illimitable  in  their  compass  of 
effect,  are  often,  for  the  same  reason,  obscure  and  un- 
traceable in  the  steps  of  their  movement.  Growth,  for 
instance,  animal  or  vegetable,  what  eye  can  arrest  its 
eternal  increments  ?  The  hour-hand  of  a  watch,  who 
can  detect  the  separate  fluxions  of  its  advance  ?  Judg- 
ing by  the  past,  and  the  change  which  is  registered 
between  that  and  the  present,  we  know  that  it  must  be 
awake ;  judging  by  the  immediate  appearances,  we 
should  say  that  it  was  always  asleep.  Gravitation, 
again,  that  works  without  holiday  for  ever,  and  searches 
every  corner  of  the  universe,  what  intellect  can  follow 
it  to  its  fountains  ?  And  yet,  shyer  than  gravitation, 
'less  to  be  counted  than  the  fluxions  of  sun-dials, 
stealthier  than  the  growth  of  a  forest,  are  the  footsteps 
of  Christianity  amongst  the  political  workings  of  man. 
Nothing,  that  the  heart  of  man  values,  is  so  secret; 
nothing  is  so  potent. 
1 


"2  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

It  is  because  Clu-istianity  works  so  secretly,  that  it 
works  so  potently;  it  is  because  Christianity  burrows 
and  hides  itself,  that  it  towers  above  the  clouds  ;  and 
hence  partly  it  is  that  its  working  comes  to  be  misap- 
prehended, or  even  lost  out  of  sight.  It  is  dark  to  eyes 
touched  with  the  films  of  human  frailty :  but  it  is 
'  dark  with  excessive  bright.'  ^  Hence  it  has  happened 
sometimes  that  minds  of  the  highest  order  have  entered 
into  enmity  with  the  Christian  faith,  have  arraigned  it 
as  a  curse  to  man,  and  have  fought  against  it  even 
upon  Christian  impulses,  (impulses  of  benignity  that 
could  not  have  had  a  birth  except  in  Christianity.) 
All  comes  from  the  labyrinthine  intricacy  in  which  the 
social  action  of  Christianity  involves  itself  to  the  eye 
of  a  contemporary.  Simplicity  the  most  absolute  is 
reconcilable  with  intricacy  the  most  elaborate.  The 
weather  —  how  simple  would  appear  the  laws  of  its 
oscillations,  if  we  stood  at  their  centre  !  and  yet,  be- 
cause we  do  not,  to  this  hour  the  weather  is  a  mystery. 
Human  health  —  how  transparent  is  its  economy  under 
ordinary  circumstances !  abstinence  and  cleanliness, 
labor  and  rest,  these  simple  laws,  observed  in  just 
proportions,  laws  that  may  be  engrossed  upon  a  finger 
nail,  are  sufficient,  on  the  whole,  to  maintain  the 
equilibrium  of  pleasurable  existence.  Yet,  if  once  that 
equilibrium  is  disturbed,  where  is  the  science  often- 
times deep  enough  to  rectify  the  unfathomable  watch- 
work  .''  Even  the  simplicities  of^  planetary  motions  do 
not  escape  distortion  :  nor  is  it  easy  to  be  convinced 
that  the  distortion  is  in  the  eye  which  beholds,  not  in 
the  object  beheld.  Let  a  planet  be  wheeling  with 
heavenly  science,  upon  arches  of  divine  geometry : 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEiMENT.  «S 

suddenly,  to  us,  it  shall  appear  unaccountably  retro- 
grade;  flying  when  none  pursues;  and  unweaving  its 
own  work.  Let  this  planet  in  its  utmost  elongations 
travel  out  of  sight,  and  for  us  its  course  will  become 
incoherent :  bepause  our  sight  is  feeble,  the  beautiful 
curve  of  the  planet  shall  be  dislocated  into  segments, 
by  a  parenthesis  of  darkness  ;  because  our  earth  is  in 
no  true  centre,  the  disorder  of  parallax  shall  trouble 
the  laws  of  light;  and,  because  we  ourselves  are 
wandering,  the  heavens  shall  seem  fickle. 

Exactly  in  the  predicament  of  such  a  planet  is 
Christianity  :  its  motions  are  intermingled  with  other 
motions;  crossed  and  thwarted,  eclipsed  and  disguised, 
by  counter-motions  in  man  himself,  and  by  disturbances 
that  man  cannot  overrule.  Upon  lines  that  are  direct, 
upon  curves  that  are  circuitous,  Christianity  is  ad- 
vancing for  ever ;  but  from  our  imperfect  vision,  or 
from  our  imperfect  opportunities  for  applying  even 
such  a  vision,  we  cannot  trace  it  continuously.  We 
lose  it,  we  regain  it ;  we  see  it  doubtfully,  we  see  it 
interruptedly  ;  we  see  it  in  collision,  we  see  it  in  com- 
bination ;  in  collision  with  darkness  that  confounds,  in 
combination  with  cross  lights  that  perplex.  And  this 
in  part  is  irremediable  ;  so  that  no  finite  intellect  will 
ever  retrace  the  total  curve  upon  v.hich  Christianity 
has  moved,  any  more  than  eyes  that  are  incarnate  will 
ever  see  God. 

But  part  of  this  difficulty  in  unweaving  the  maze, 
has  its  source  in  a  misconception  of  the  original 
machinery  by  which  Christianity  moved,  and  of  the 
initial  principle  which  constituted  its  differential  power. 
In  books,  at  least,  I  have  observed  one  capital  blunder 


4  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

upon  the  relations  which  Christianity  bears  to  Pagan- 
ism :  and  out  of  tliat  one  mistake,  grows  a  liability  to 
others,  upon  the  possible  relations  of  Christianity  to  the 
total  drama  of  this  world.  I  will  endeavor  to  explain 
my  views.  And  the  reader,  who  takes  any  interest  in 
the  subject,  will  not  need  to  fear  that  the  explanation 
should  prove  tedious  ;  for  the  mere  want  of  space,  w\\[ 
put  me  under  a  coercion  to  move  rapidly  over  the 
ground;  I  cannot  be  ditTusc;  and,  as  regards  quality, 
he  will  find  in  this  paper  little  of  what  is  scattered  over 
the  surface  of  books. 

I  begin  with  this  question  :  —  What  do  people  mean 
in  a  Christian  land  by  the  word  '  religion  7 '  My 
purpose  is  not  to  propound  any  metaphysical  pro- 
blem ;  I  wish  only,  in  the  plainest  possible  sense, 
to  ask,  and  to  have  an  answer,  upon  this  one  point  — 
how  much  is  understood  by  that  obscure  term,-  '  re- 
ligion,' when  used  by  a  Christian  ?  Only  I  am  punc- 
tilious upon  one  demand,  viz.,  that  the  answer  shall  be 
comprehensive.  We  are  apt  in  such  cases  to  answer 
elliptically,  omitting,  because  silently  presuming  as 
understood  between  us,  whatever  seems  obvious.  To 
prevent  that,  we  will  suppose  the  question  to  be  pro- 
posed by  an  emissary  from  some  remote  planet, — 
who,  knowing  as  yet  absolutely  nothing  of  us  and  our 
intellectual  differences,  must  insist  (as  /  insist)  upon 
absolute  precision,  so  that  nothing  essential  shall  be 
wanting,  and  nothing  shall  be  redundant. 

What,  then,  is  religion.^  Decomposed  into  its  ele- 
ments, as  they  are  found  in  Christianity,  how  many 
poicers  for  acting  on  the  heart  of  man,  does,  by  possi- 
bility, this  great  agency  include  ?     According  to  my 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  5 

own  view,  four.^  I  will  state  them,  and  number 
them. 

1st.  A  form  of  worship,  a  ciiltus. 

2dly.  An  idea  of  God  ;  and  (pointing  the  analysis  to 
Christianity  in  particular)  an  idea  not  purified  merely 
from  ancient  pollutions,  but  recast  and  absolutely  born 
again. 

3dly.  An  idea  of  the  relation  which  man  occupies 
to  God  :  and  of  this  idea  also,  when  Christianity  is  the 
religion  concerned,  it  must  be  said,  that  it  is  so  entirely 
remodelled,  as  in  no  respect  to  resemble  any  element 
in  any  other  religion.  Thus  far  we  are  reminded  of 
the  poet's  expression,  '  Pure  religion  breathing  house- 
hold laws  ;'  that  is,  not  teaching  such  laws,  not  formally 
prescribing  a  new  economy  of  life,  so  much  as  iu' 
spiring  it  indirectly  through  a"  new  atmosphere  sur- 
rounding all  objects  with  new  attributes.  But  there  is 
also  in  Christianity, 

4thly.  A  doctrinal  part,  a  part  directly  and  explicitly 
occupied  with  teaching;  and  this  divides  into  two 
great  sections,  a,  A  system  of  ethics  so  absolutely  new 
as  to  be  untranslatable"*  into  either  of  the  classical 
languages ;  and,  /3,  A  system  of  mysteries ;  as,  for 
instance,  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  of  the  Divine 
Incarnation,  of  the  Atonement,  of  the  Resurrection, 
and  others. 

Here  are  great  elements ;  and  now  let  me  ask,  how 
many  of  these  are  found  in  the  Heathen  religion  of 
Greece  and  Rome  }  This  is  an  important  question ; 
it  being  my  object  to  show  that  no  religion  but  the 
Christian,  and  precisely  through  some  one  or  two  of 


b  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

its  differential  elements,  could  have  been  un  organ  of 
polilical  movement. 

Most  divines  wlio  anywhere  glance  at  tliis  ques^lion, 
are  here  found  in,  what  seems  to  me,  the  deepest  of 
errors.  Great  theologians  are  they,  and  eminent  phi- 
losophers, who  have  presumed  that  (as  a  matter  of 
course)  all  religions,  however  false,  are  introductory  to 
some  scheme  of  morality,  however  imperfect.  They 
grant  you  that  the  morality  is  oftentimes  unsound; 
but  still,  they  think  that  some  morality  there  must  have 
been,  or  else  for  what  purpose  was  the  religion  ?  This 
I  pronounce  error. 

All  the  moral  theories  of  antiquity  were  utterly  dis- 
joined from  religion.  But  this  fallacy  of  a  dogmatic 
or  doctrinal  part  in  Paganism  is  born  out  of  Anachron- 
ism. It  is  the  anachronism  of  unconsciously  reflecting 
back  upon  the  ancient  religions  of*  darkness,  and  as  if 
essential  to  all  religions,  features  that  naver  were 
suspected  as  possible,  until  they  had  been  revealed  in 
Christianity.^  Religion,  in  the  eye  of  a  Pagan,  had  no 
more  relation  to  morals,  than  it  had  to  ship-building  or 
trigonometry.  But,  then,  why  was  religion  honored 
amonfjst  Pagans  ?  How  did  it  ever  arise  ?  What  was 
its  object.'  Object!  it  had  no  object;  if  by  this  you 
mean  ulterior  object.  Pagan  religion  arose  in  no 
motive,  but  in  an  impulse.  Pagan  religion  aimed  at 
no  distant  prize  ahead  :  it  fled  from  a  danger  iminedi- 
ately  behind.  The  gods  of  the  Pagans  were  wicked 
natures;  but  they  were  natures  to  be  feared,  and  to  be 
propitiated ;  for  they  were  fierce,  and  they  were 
moody,  and  (as  regarded  man  who  had  no  wings)  they 
were  powerful.     Once  accredited  as  facts,  the  Pagan 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  / 

gods  could  not  be  regarded  as  other  than  terrific  facts ; 
and  thus  it  was,  that  in  terror,  blind  terror,  as  against 
power  in  the  hands  of  divine  wickedness,  arose  the 
ancient  religions  of  Paganism.  Because  the  gods  were 
wicked,  man  was  religious;  because  Olympus  was 
cruel,  earth  trembled  ;  because  the  divine  beings  were 
the  most  lawless,  of  Thugs,  the  human  being  became 
the  most  abject  of  sycophants. 

Had  the  religions  of  Paganism  arisen  teleologically ; 
that  is,  with  a  view  to  certain  purposes,  to  certain  final 
causes  ahead  ;  had  they  grown  out  of /oru?arc?-looking 
views,  contemplating,  for  instance,  the  furthering  of 
civilization,  or  contemplating  some  interests  in  a  world 
beyond  the  present,  there  would  probably  have  arisen, 
concurrently,  a  section  in  all  such  religions,  dedicated 
to  positive  instruction.  There  would  have  been  a 
doctrinal  part.  There  might  have  been  interwoven 
with  the  ritual  or  worship,  a  system  of  economics,  or  a 
code  of  civil  prudence,  or  a  code  of  health,  or  a  theory 
of  morals,  or  even  a  secret  revelation  of  mysterious 
relations  between  man  and  the  Deity :  all  which 
existed  in  Judaism.  But,  as  the  case  stood,  this  was 
impossible.  The  gods  were  mere  odious  facts,  like 
scorpions  or  rattlesnakes,  having  no  moral  aspects 
whatever ;  public  nuisances ;  and  bearing  no  relation 
to  man  but  that  of  capricious  tyrants.  First  arising 
upon  a  basis  of  terror,  these  gods  never  subsequently 
enlarged  that  basis ;  nor  sought  to  enlarge  it.  All 
antiquity  contains  no  hint  of  a  possibility  that  love 
could  arise,  as  by  any  ray  mingling  with  the  senti- 
ments in  a  human  creature  towards  a  Divine  one  ; 
not  even  sycophants  ever  pretended  to  love  the 
gods. 


8  OM    CHKISTIANlTi'    AS    AN    ORGAN 

Under  this  original  peculiarity  of  Paganism,  there 
arose  two  consequences,  which  I  will  mark  by  the 
Greek  letters  «•  and  /3.  The  latter  I  will  notice  in  its 
order,  first  calling  the  reader's  attention  to  the  conse- 
quencp  marked  a,  which  is  this: — In  the  full  and 
profoundest  sense  of  the  word  believe,  the  pagans 
could  not  be  said  to  believe  in  any  gods :  but,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  they  did,  and  do,  and  must  believe,  in 
all  gods.  As  this  proposition  will  startle  some  readers, 
and  is  yet  closely  involved  in  the  main  truth  which  I 
am  now  pressing,  viz.  the  meaning  and  effect  of  a 
simple  cuUus,  as  distinguished  from  a  high  doctrinal 
religion,  let  us  seek  an  illustration  from  our  Indian 
empire.  The  Christian  missionaries  from  home,  when 
first  opening  their  views  to  Hindoos,  describe  them- 
selves as  laboring  to  prove  that  Christianity  is  a  true 
religion,  and  as  either  asserting,  or  leaving  it  to  be 
inferred,  that,  on  that  assumption,  the  Hindoo  religion 
is  a  false  one.  But  the  poor  Hindoo  never  dreamed 
of  doubting  that  the  Christian  was  a  true  religion  ;  nor 
will  he  at  all  infer,  from  your  religion  being  true,  that 
his  own  must  be  false.  Both  are  true,  he  thinks :  all 
religions  are  true  ;  all  gods  are  true  gods ;  and  all  are 
equally  true.  Neither  can  he  understand  what  you 
mean  by  a  false  religion,  or  how  a  religion  could  be 
false  ;  and  he  is  perfectly  right.  Wherever  religions 
consist  only  of  a  worship,  as  the  Hindoo  religion  does, 
there  can  be  no  competition  amongst  them  as  to  truth. 
That  would  be  an  absurdity,  not  less  nor  other  than  it 
would  be  for  a  Prussian  to  denounce  the  Austrian 
emperor,  or  an  Austrian  to  denounce  the  Prussian 
king,  as  a  false  sovereign.     False  !     How  false  }     In 


Jl 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  » 

what  sense  false  ?  Surely  not  as  non-existing.  But 
at  least,  (the  reader  will  reply,)  if  the  religions  con- 
tradict each  other,  one  of  them  must  be  false.  Yes; 
but  that  is  impossible.  Two  religions  cannot  contradict 
each  other,  where  both  contain  only  a  cultus :  they 
could  come  into  collision  only  by  means  of  a  doctrinal, 
or  directly  affirmative  part,  like  those  of  Christianity 
and  Mahometanism.  But  this  part  is  what  no  idolatrous 
religion  ever  had,  or  will  have.  The  reader  must  not 
understand  me  to  mean  that,  merely  as  a  compromise 
of  courtesy,  two  professors  of  different  idolatries  would 
agree  to  recognise  each  other.  Not  at  all.  The  truth 
of  one  does  not  imply  the  falsehood  of  the  other. 
Both  are  true  as  facts :  neither  can  be  false,  in  any 
higher  sense,  because  neither  makes  any  pretence  to 
truth  doctrinal. 

This  distinction  between  a  religion  having  merely  a 
worship,  and  a  religion  having  also  a  body  of  doctrinal 
truth,  is  familiar  to  the  Mahometans  ;  and  they  convey 
the  distinction  by  a  very  appropriate  expression.  Those 
majestic  religions,  (as  they  esteem  thcin,)  which  rise 
above  the  mere  pomps  and  tympanies  of  ceremonial 
worship,  they  denominate  '  I'eligions  of  the  look.' 
There  are,  of  such  religions,  three,  viz.,  Judaism, 
Christianity,  and  Islamism.  The  6rst  builds  upon  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets ;  or,  perhaps,  sufficiently  upoa 
the  Pentateuch ;  the  second  upon  the  Gospel ;  the  last 
upon  the  Koran.  No  other  religion  can  be  said  to  rest 
upon  a  book;  or  to  need  a  book;  or  even  to  admit  of 
a  book.  For  we  must  not  be  duped  by  the  case  where 
a  lawgiver  attempts  to  connect  his  own  human  institutes 
with  the  venerable  sanctions  of  a  national  religion,  or 


10  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

the  case  where  a  learned  antiquary  unfolds  historically 
the  record  of  a  vast  mythology.  Heaps  of  such  cases, 
(both  law  and  mythological  records,)  survive  in  the 
Sanscrit,  and  in  other  pagan  languages.  But  these  are 
books  which  build  upon  the  religion,  not  books  upon 
which  the  religion  is  built.  If  a  religion  consists  only 
of  a  ceremonial  worship,  in  that  case  there  can  be  no 
opening  for  a  book ;  because  the  forms  and  details 
publish  themselves  daily,  in  the  celebration  of  the 
worship,  and  are  traditionally  preserved,  from  age  to 
age,  without  dependence  on  a  book.  But,  if  a  religion 
has  a  doctrine,  this  implies  a  revelation  or  message 
from  Heaven,  which  cannot,  in  any  other  way,  secure 
the  transmission  of  -this  message  to  future  generations, 
than  by  causing  it  to  be  registered  in  a  book.  A 
book,  therefore,  will  be  convertible  with  a  doctrinal 
religion:  —  no  book,  no  doctrine;  and,  again,  no  doc- 
trine, no  book. 

Upon  these  principles,  we^  may  understand  that 
second  consequence  (marked  fi)  which  has  perplexed 
many  men,  viz.,  why  it  is  that  the  Hindoos,  in  our  own 
times;  but,  equally,  why  it  is  that  the  Greek  and 
Roman  idolaters  of  antiquity,  never  proselytized;  no, 
nor  could  have  viewed  such  an  attempt  as  rational. 
Naturally,  if  a  religion  is  doctrinal,  any  truth  which  it 
possesses,  as  a  secret  deposit  consigned  to  its  keeping 
by  a  revelation,  must  be  equally  valid  for  one  man  as 
for  another,  without  regard  to  race  or  nation.  For  a 
doctrinal  religion,  therefore,  to  proselytize,  is  no  more 
than  a  duty  of  consistent  humanity.  You,  the  profes- 
sors of  that  religion,  possess  the  medicinal  fountains. 
You  will  not  diminish  your  own  share  by  imparting  to 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEBIENT.  11 

Others.  What  churlishness,  if  you  should  grudge  to 
others  a  health  which  does  not  interfere  with  your  own  ! 
Christians,  therefore,  Mahometans,  and  Jews  originally, 
in  proportion  as  they  were  sincere  and  conscientious, 
have  always  invited,  or  even  forced,  the  unbelieving  to 
their  own  faith  :  nothing  but  accidents  of  situation, 
local  or  political,  have  disturbed  this  effort.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  for  a  mere  '  cult  us'  to  attempt  conver- 
sions, is  nonsense.  An  ancient  Roman  could  have  had 
no  motive  for  bringing  you  over  to  the  worship  of 
Jupiter  Capitolinus ;  nor  you  any  motive  for  going. 
*  Surely,  poor  man,'  he  would  have  said,  'you  have 
some  god  of  your  own,  who  will  be  quite  as  good  for 
t/our  countrymen  as  Jupiter  for  mine.  But,  if  you 
have  not,  really  I  am  sorry  for  your  case  ;  and  a 
very  odd  case  it  is  :  but  I  don't  see  how  it  could  be 
improved  by  talking  nonsense.  You  cannot  bene- 
ficially, you  cannot  rationally,  worship  a  tutelary 
Roman  deity,  unless  in  the  character  of  a  Roman  ; 
and  a  Roman  you  may  become,  legally  and  politically. 
Being  such,  you  will  participate  in  all  advantages,  if 
any  there  are,  of  our  national  religion  ;  and,  without 
needing  a  process  of  conversion,  either  in  substance  or 
in  form.  Ipso  facto,  and  without  any  separate  clioico 
of  your  own,  on  becoming  a  Roman  citizen,  you  be- 
come a  party  to  the  Roman  worship.'  For  an  idola- 
trous religion  to  proselytize,  would,  therefore,  be  not 
only  useless  but  unintelligible. 

Now,  having  explained  that  point,  which  is  a  great 
step  towards  the  final  object  of  my  paper,  viz.,  the 
investigation  of  the  reason  why  Christianity  is,  which 
no  pagan  religion  ever  has  been,  an  organ  of  political 


12  ON    CHKISTIANITY    AS    AN    OKGAN 

movement,  I  will  go  on  to  review  rapidly  those  four 
constituents  of  a  religion,  as  they  are  realized  in 
Christianity,  for  the  purpose  of  contrasting  them  with 
the  false  shadows,  or  even  blank  negations,  of  these 
constituents  in  pagan  idolatries. 

First,  then,  as  to  the  Cultus,  or  form  of  the  national 
worship  :  —  In  our  Christian  ritual  I  recognise  these 
separate  acts  ;  viz.  A,  an  act  of  Praise  ;  B,  an  act  of 
Thanksgiving ;  C,  an  act  of  Confession  ;  D,  an  act  of 
Prayer.  In  A,  we  commemorate  with  adoration  the 
general  perfections  of  the  Deity.  There,  all  of  us 
have  an  equal  interest.  In  B,  we  commemorate  with 
thankfulness  those  special  qualities  of  the  Deity,  or 
those  special  manifestations  of  them,  by  which  we,  the 
individual  worshippers,  have  recently  benefited.  In  C, 
by  upright  confession,  we  deprecate.  In  D,  we  pray, 
or  ask  for  the  things  which  we  need.  Now,  in  the 
cultus  of  the  ancient  pagans,  B  and  C  (the  second  act 
and  the  third)  were  wanting  altogether.  No  thanks- 
giving ever  ascended,  on  his  own  account,  from  the 
lips  of  an  individual  ;  and  the  state  thanksgiving  for  a 
triumph  of  the  national  armies,  was  but  a  mode  of 
ostentatiously  publishing  the  news.  As  to  C,  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  this  was  wanting,  when 
I  mention  that  penitential  feelings  were  unknown 
amongst  the  ancients,  and  had  no  name  •,  for  pmii- 
tenlia^  means  regret,  not  penitence;  and  me  pcenitet 
Imjiis  facti,  means,  '  I  rue  this  act  in  its  consequences,' 
not  '  I  repent  of  this  act  for  its  moral  nature.'  A  and 
D,  the  first  act  and  the  last,  appear  to  be  present ; 
but  are  so  most  imperfectly.  When  '  God  is  praised 
aright,'    praised   by    means   of    such   deeds   or   such 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  13 

attributes  as  express  a  divine  nature,  we  recognise  one 
great  function  of  a  national  worship,  —  not  otherwise. 
This,  however,  we  must  overlook  and  pardon,  as  being 
a  fault  essential  to  the  religion  :  the  poor  creatures  did 
the  best  they  could  to  praise  their  god,  lying  under  the 
curse  of  gods  so  thoroughly  depraved.  But  in  D,  the 
case  is  different.  Strictly  speaking,  the  ancients  never 
prayed ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  D  approaches 
so  near  to  what  ice  mean  by  prayer,  as  even  by  a 
mockery.  You  read  of  preces,  of  «?«',  &c.  and  you 
are  desirous  to  believe  that  pagan  supplications  were 
not  always  corrupt.  It  is  too  shocking  to  suppose,  in 
thinking  of  nations  idolatrous  yet  noble,  that  never  any 
pure  act  of  approach  to  the  heavens  took  place  on  the 
part  of  man  ;  that  always  the  intercourse  was  corrupt ; 
always  doubly  corrupt;  that  eternally  the  god  was 
bought,  and  the  votary  was  sold.  Oh,  weariness  of 
man's  spirit  before  that  unresting  mercenariness  in 
high  places,  which  neither,  when  his  race  clamored 
for  'justice,  nor  when  it  languished  for  pity,  would 
listen  without  hire!  How  gladly  would  man  turn 
away  from  his  false  rapacious  divinities  to  the  godlike 
human  heart,  that  so  often  would  yield  pardon  before  it 
was  asked,  and  for  the  thousandth  time  that  would  give 
without  a  bribe  !  In  strict  propriety,  as  my  reader 
knows,  the  classical  Latin  word  for  a  prayer  is  voluin ; 
it  was  a  case  of  contract;  of  mercantile  contract;  of 
that  contract  which  the  Roman  law  expressed  by  the 
formula — Do  ul  des.  Vainly  you  came  before  the 
altars  with  empty  hands.  '  But  7ny  hands  are  pure.' 
Pure,  indeed  !  would  reply  the  scoffuig  god,  let  me  see 
what   they  contain.     It   was    exactly   what  you   daily 


14 


ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    OKGAN 


read  in  morning  papers,  viz.:  —  that,  in  order  to 
appear  etTectually  before  that  Olympus  in  London, 
which  rains  rarities  upon  us  poor  abject  creatures  in 
the  provinces,  you  must  enclose  'an  order  on  the  Post- 
Office  or  a  reference.'  It  is  true  that  a  man  did  not 
always  register  his  iwf.um,  (the  particular  offering 
which  he  vowed  on  the  condition  of  receiving  what  he 
asked,)  at  the  moment  of  asking.  Ajax,  for  instance, 
prays  for  light  in  the  '  Iliad,'  and  he  does  not  then  and 
there  give  either  an  order  or  a  reference.  Bui  you  are 
much  mistaken,  if  you  fancy  that  even  light  was  to  be 
had  gratis.  It  would  be  '  carried  to  account.'  Ajax 
would  be  '  debited'  with  that  '  advance.' 

Yet,  when  it  occurs  to  a  man  that,  in  this  Do  ut  des, 
the  general  Do  was  either  a  temple  or  a  sacrifice, 
naturally  it  occurs  to  ask  what  was  a  sacrifice  ?  I  am 
afraid  that  the  dark  murderous  nature  of  the  pagan 
gods  is  here  made  apparent.  Modern  readers,  who 
have  had  no  particular  reason  for  reflecting  on  the 
nature  and  management  of  a  sacrifice,  totally  miscon- 
ceive it.  They  have  a  vague  notion  that  the  slaugh- 
tered animal  was  roasted,  served  up  on  the  altars  as  a 
banquet  to  the  gods ;  that  these  gods  by  some  repre- 
sentative ceremony  '  made  believe'  to  eat  it;  and  that 
finally,  (as  dishes  that  had  now  become  hallowed  to 
divine  use,)  the  several  joints  were  disposed  of  in  some 
mysterious  manner :  burned,  suppose,  or  buried  under 
the  altars,  or  committed  to  the  secret  keeping  of  rivers. 
Nothing  of  the  sort:  when  a  man  made  a  sacrifice,  the 
meaning  was,  that  he  gave  a  dinner.  And  not  only 
was  every  sacrifice  a  dinner  party,  but  every  dinner 
party  v/as  a  sacrifice.     This  was  strictly  so  in  the  good 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  15 

old  ferocious  times  of  paganism,  as  may  be  seen  in 
the  Iliad  :  it  was  not  said,  '  Agamemnon  has  a  dinner 
party  to-day,'  but  'Agamemnon  sacrifices  to  Apollo.' 
Even  in  Rome,  to  the  last  days  of  paganism,  it  is 
probable  that  some  slight  memorial  continued  to  con- 
nect the  dinner  party  [ccewa]  with  a  divine  sacrifice ; 
and  ihence  partly  arose  the  sanctity  of  the  hospitable 
board  ;  but  to  the  east  of  the  Mediterranean  the  full 
ritual  of  a  sacrifice  must  have  been  preserved  in  all 
banquets,  long  after  it  had  faded  to  a  form  in  the  less 
superstitious  West.  This  we  may  learn  from  that 
point  of  casuistry  treated  by  St.  Paul,  —  whether  a 
Christian  might  lawfully  cat  of  things  offered  to  idols. 
The  question  was  most  urgent ;  because  a  Christian 
could  not  accept  an  invitation  to  dine  with  a  Grecian 
fellow-citizen  who  still  adhered  to  paganism,  loithout 
eating  things  offered  to  idols;  —  the  whole  banquet 
was  dedicated  to  an  idol.  If  he  would  not  take  that, 
he  must  continue  impransus.  Consequently,  the  ques- 
tion virtually  amounted  to  this  :  Were  the  Christians  to 
separate  themselves  altogether  from  those  whose  in- 
terests were  in  so  many  ways  entangled  with  their 
own,  on  the  single  consideration  that  these  persons 
were  heathens  ?  To  refuse  their  hospitalities^  teas  to 
separate,  and  with  a  hostile  expression  of  feeling. 
That  would  be  to  throw  hindrances  in  the  way  of 
Christianity :  the  religion  could  not  spread  rapidly 
under  such  repulsive  prejudices ;  and  dangers,  that  it 
became  un-Christian  to  provoke,  would  thus  multiply 
against  the  infant  faith.  This  being  so,  and  as  the 
gods  were  really  the  only  parties  invited  who  got 
nothing  at  all  of  the  banquet,  it  becomes  a  question  of 


16  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

some  interest,  —  what  did  they  get  ?  They  were 
merely  mocked,  if  they  had  no  compensatory  interest 
in  the  dinner!  For  surely  it  was  an  inconceivable 
mode  of  honoring  Jupiter,  that  you  and  I  should  eat  a 
piece  of  roast  beef,  leaving  to  the  god's  share  only  the 
mockery  of  a  Barmecide  invitation,  assigning  him  a 
chair  which  every  body  knew  that  he  would  never  fill, 
and  a  plate  which  might  as  well  have  been  filled  with 
warm  water  ?  Jupiter  got  somethings  be  assured  ;  and 
what  ivas  it?  This  it  was,  —  the  luxury  of  inhaling 
the  groans,  the  fleeting  breath,  the  palpitations,  the 
agonies,  of  the  dying  victim.  This  was  the  dark 
interest  which  the  wretches  of  Olympus  had  in  human 
invitations  to  dinner:  and  it  is  too  certain,  upon  com- 
paring facts  and  dates,  that,  when  left  to  their  own 
choice,  the  gods  had  a  preference  for  vian  as  the 
victim.  All  things  concur  to  show,  that  precisely  as 
you  ascend  above  civilization,  which  continually  in- 
creased the  limitations  upon  the  gods  of  Olympus, 
precisely  as  you  go  back  to  that  gloomy  state  in  which 
their  true  propensities  had  power  to  reveal  themselves, 
was  man  the  genuine  victim  for  them,  and  the  dying 
anguish  of  man  the  best  'nidor'  that  ascended  from 
earthlji  banquets  to  their  nostrils.  Their  stern  eyes 
smiled  darkly  upon  the  throbbings  of  tortured  flesh,  as 
in  Moloch's  ears  dwelt  like  music  the  sound  of  infants' 
wailings. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  birth  of  a  new  idea  respecting 
the  nature  of  God  :  —  It  may  not  have  occurred  to 
every  reader,  but  none  will  perhaps  object  to  it,  when 
once  suggested  to  his  consideration,  that  —  as  is  the 
god  of  any  nation,   such  will  be   that  nation.     God, 


'       OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  17 

however  falsely  conceived  of  by  man,  even  though 
splintered  into  fragments  by  Polytheism,  or  disfigured 
by  the  darkest  mythologies,  is  still  the  greatest  of  all 
objects  offered  to  human  contemplation.  ]\Ian,  when 
thrown  upon  his  own  delusions,  may  have  raised  himself, 
or  may  have  adopted  from  others,  the  very  falsest  of 
ideals,  as  the  true  image  and  reflection  of  what  he  calls 
god.  In  his  lowest  condition  of  darkness,  terror  may 
be  the  moulding  principle  for  spiritual  conceptions ; 
power,  the  engrossing  attribute  which  he  ascribes  to 
his  deity;  and  this  power  may  be  hideously  capricious, 
or  associated  with  vindictive  cruelty.  It  may  even 
happen,  that  his  standard  of  what  is  highest  in  the 
divinity  should  be  capable  of  falling  greatly  below 
what  an  enlightened  mind  would  figure  to  itself  as 
lowest  in  man.  A  more  shocking  monument,  indeed, 
there  cannot  be  than  this,  of  the  infinity  by  which  man 
may  descend  below  his  own  capacities  of  grandeur : 
the  gods,  in  some  systems  of  religion,  have  been  such 
and  so  monstrous  by  excesses  of  wickedness,  as  to 
insure,  if  annually  one  hour  of  periodical  eclipse 
should  have  left  them  at  the  mercy  of  man,  a  general 
rush  from  their  own  worshippers  for  strangling  them 
as  mad  dogs.  Hypocrisy,  the  cringing  of  sycophants, 
and  the  credulities  of  fear,  united  to  conceal  this 
misotheism ;  but  we  may  be  sure  that  it  was  widely 
diffused  through  the  sincerities  of  the  human  heart. 
An  intense  desire  for  kicking  Jupiter,  or  for  hanging 
him,  if  found  convenient,  must  have  lurked  in  the 
honorable  Roman  heart,  before  the  sincerity  of  human 
nature  could  have  extorted  upon  the  Roman  stage  a 
public   declaration, —  that   their   supreme   gods   were 


18  ON   CHRISTIANITY   AS   AN    ORGAN 

capable  of  enormities  which  a  poor,  unpretending 
human  creature  [homuncio]  would  have  disdained. 
Many  times  the  ideal  of  the  divine  nature,  as  adopted 
by  pagan  races,  fell  under  the  contempt,  not  only  of 
men  superior  to  the  national  superstition,  but  of  men 
partaking  in  that  superstition.  Yet,  with  all  those 
drawbacks,  an  ideal  zoas  an  ideal.  The  being  setup 
for  adoration  as  god,  was  such  upon  the  whole  to  the 
worshipper ;  since,  if  there  had  been  any  higher  mode 
of  excellence  conceivable  for  him^  that  higher  mode 
would  have  virtually  become  his  deity.  It  cannot  be 
doubted,  therefore,  that  the  nature  of  the  national 
divinities  indicated  the  qualities  which  ranked  highest 
in  the  national  estimation  ;  and  that  being  contemplated 
continually  in  the  spirit  of  veneration,  these  qualities 
must  have  worked  an  extensive  conformity  to  their 
own  standard.  The  mythology  sanctioned  by  the 
ritual  of  public  worship,  the  features  of  moral  nature  in 
the  gods  distributed  through  that  mythology,  and  some- 
times commemorated  by  gleams  in  that  ritual,  dom- 
ineered over  the  popular  heart,  even  in  those  cases 
W'here  the  religion  had  been  a  derivative  religion,  and 
not  originally  moulded  by  impulses  breathing  from  the 
native  disposition.  So  that,  upon  the  whole,  such  as 
were  the  gods  of  a  nation,  such  was  the  nation  :  given 
the  particular  idolatry,  it  became  possible  to  decipher 
the  character  of  the  idolaters.  Where  Moloch  was 
worshipped,  the  people  would  naturally  be  found  cruel ; 
whei'e  the  Paphian  Venus,  it  could  not  be  expected 
that  they  should  escape  the  taint  of  a  voluptuous 
effeminacy. 

Against  this  principle,  there  could   have   been  no 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  19 

room  for  demur,  were  it  not  through  that  inveterate 
prejudice  besieging  the  modern  mind,  —  as  though  all 
religion,  however  false,  implied  some  scheme  of  morals 
connected  with  it.  However  imperfectly  discharged, 
one  function  even  of  tlie  pagan  priest  (it  is  supposed) 
must  have  been  —  to  guide,  to  counsel,  to  exhort,  as  a 
teacher  of  morals.  And,  had  that  been  so,  the  practi- 
cal precepts,  and  the  moral  commentary  coming  after 
even  the  grossest  forms  of  worship,  or  the  most  revolt- 
ing mythological  legends,  might  have  operated  to 
neutralize  their  horrors,  or  even  to  allegorize  them 
into  better  meanings.  Lord  Bacon,  as  a  trial  of  skill, 
has  attempted  something  of  that  sort  in  his  '  Wisdom 
of  the  Ancients.'  But  all  this  is  modern  refinement, 
either  in  the  spirit  of  playful  ingenuity  or  of  ignorance. 
I  have  said  sufficiently  that  there  was  no  doctrinal 
part  in  the  religion  of  the  pagans.  There  was  a 
cultus,  or  ceremonial  worship :  that  constituted  the 
sum  total  of  religion,  in  the  idea  of  a  pagan.  There 
was  a  necessity,  for  the  sake  of  guarding  its  traditional 
usages,  and  upholding  and  supporting  its  pomp,  that 
official  persons  should  preside  in  this  cultus  :  that  con- 
stituted the  duty  of  the  priest.  Beyond  this  ritual  of 
public  worship,  there  was  nothing  at  all ;  nothing  to 
believe,  nothing  to  understand.  A  set  of  legendary 
tales  undoubtedly  there  was,  connected  with  the  mytho- 
logic  history  of  each  separate  deity.  But  in  what 
sense  you  understood  these,  or  whether  you  were  at  all 
acquainted  with  them,  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to 
the  priests  ;  since  many  of  these  legends  were  variously 
related,^and  some  had  apparently  been  propagated  in 
ridicule  of  the  gods,  rather  than  in  their  honor. 


20  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS   AN    ORGAN 

With  Christianity  a  new  scene  was  opened.  In  this 
religion  the  cullus,  or  form  of  worship,  was  not  even 
the  primary  business,  far  less  was  it  the  exclusive 
business.  The  worship  flowed  as  a  direct  consequence 
from  the  new  idea  exposed  of  the  divine  nature,  and 
from  the  new  idea  of  man's  relations  to  this  nature. 
Here  were  suddenly  unmasked  great  doctrines,  truths 
positive  and  directly  avowed :  whereas,  in  Pagan  forms 
of  religion,  any  notices  which  then  were,  or  seemed  to 
be,  of  circumstances  surrounding  the  gods,  related 
only  to  matters  of  fact  or  accident,  such  as  that  a 
particular  god  was  the  son  or  the  nephew  of  some 
other  god ;  a  truth,  if  it  were  a  truth,  wholly  imper- 
tinent to  any  interest  of  man. 

As  there  are  some  important  truths,  dimly  perceived 
or  not  at  all,  lurking  in  the  idea  of  God,  —  an  idea  too 
vast  to  be  navigable  as  yet  by  the  human  understanding, 
yet  here  and  there  to  be  coasted,  —  I  wish  at  this  point 
to  direct  the  reader's  attention  upon  a  passage  which 
he  may  happen  to  remember  in  Sir  Isaac  Newton :  the 
passage  occurs  at  the  end  of  the  '  Optics ; '  and  the 
exact  expressions  I  do  not  remember  ;  but  the  sense  is 
what  I  am  going  to  state  :  Sir  Isaac  is  speaking  of 
God ;  and  he  takes  occasion  to  say,  that  God  is  not 
good,  but  goodness;  is  not  holy,  but  holiness;  is  not 
infinite,  but  infinity.  This,  I  apprehend,  will  have 
struck  many  readers  as  merely  a  rhetorical  bravura  ; 
sublime,  perhaps,  and  fitted  to  exalt  the  feeling  of  awe 
connected  with  so  unapproachable  a  mystery,  but  oth- 
erwise not  throwing  any  new  light  upon  the  darkness  of 
the  idea  as  a  problem  before  the  intellect.  Yet  indi- 
rectly perhaps  it  does,  when  brought  out  into  its  latent 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  21 

sense  by  placing  it  in  juxtaposition  with  paganism.  If 
a  philosophic  theist,  who  is  also  a  Christian,  or  who 
{not  being  a  Christian,)  has  yet  by  his  birth  and  breed- 
ing become  saturated  with  Christian  ideas  and  feelings,''' 
attempts  to  realize  the  idea  of  supreme  Deity,  he  be- 
comes aware  of  a  double  and  contradictory  movement 
in  his  own  mind  whilst  striving  towards  that  result.  He 
demands,  in  the  first  place,  something  in  the  highest 
degree  generic  ;  and  yet  again  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, something  in  the  highest  degree  individual  ;  he 
demands  on  the  one  path,  a  vast  ideality,  and  yet  on 
the  other,  in  union  with  a  determinate  personality.  He 
must  not  surrender  himself  to  the  first  impulse,  else  he 
is  betrayed  into  a  mere  anima  mundi ;  he  must  not 
surrender  himself  to  the  second,  else  he  is  betrayed  into 
something  merely  human.  This  difficult  antagonism, 
of  what  is  most  and  what  is  least  generic,  must  be 
maintained,  otherwise  the  idea,  the  possible  idea,  of 
that  august  unveilihg  which  takes  place  in  the  Judaico- 
Christian  God,  is  absolutely  in  clouds.  Now,  this 
antagonism  utterly  collapses  in  paganism.  And  to 
a  philosophic  apprehension,  this  peculiarity  of  the 
heathen  gods  is  more  shocking  and  fearful  than  what 
at  first  sight  had  seemed  most  so.  When  a  man 
pauses  for  the  purpose  of  attentively  reviewing  the 
Pantheon  of  Greece  and  Rome,  what  strikes  him  at 
the  first  with  most  depth  of  impression  and  with  most 
horror  is,  the  wickedness  of  this  Pantheon.  And  he 
observes  with  surprise,  that  this  wickedness,  which  is 
at  a  furnace-heat  in  the  superior  gods,  becomes  fainter 
and  paler  as  you  descend.  Amongst  the  semi-dehies, 
such  as  the  Oreads  or  Dryads,  the  Nereids  or  Naiads, 


22  ON    CHRISTIANITY   AS    AN    OBGAN 

he  feels  not  at  all  ofTended.  Tbc  odor  of  corruptiori, 
the  sccva  mcyliUis,  has  by  this  time  exhaled.  The  up- 
roar of  eternal  outrage  has  ceased.  And  these  gentle 
divinities,  if  too  human  and  too  beset  with  infirmities, 
are  not  impure,  and  not  vexed  with  ugly  appethcs,  nor 
instinct  of  quarrel  :  they  are  tranquil  as  are  the  hills 
and  the  forests ;  passionless  as  are  the  seas  and  the 
fountains  which  they  tenant.  But,  when  he  ascends  to 
the  dii  majorum  gentium,  to  those  twelve  gods  of  the 
supreme  house,  who  may  be  called  in  respect  of  rank, 
the  Paladins  of  the  classical  Pantheon,  secret  horror 
comes  over  him  at  the  thought  that  demons,  reflecting 
the  worst  aspects  of  brutal  races,  ever  could  have  levied 
worship  from  his  own.  It  is  true  they  do  so  no  longer 
as  regards  our  planet.  But  what  has  been  apparently 
may  be.  God  made  the  Greeks  and  Romans  of  one 
blood  with  himself;  he  cannot  deny  that  intellectually 
the  Greeks  —  he  cannot  deny  that  morally  the  Romans 
—  were  amongst  the  foremost  of  human  races  ;  and  he 
trembles  in  thinking  that  abominations,  whose  smoke 
ascended  through  so  many  ages  to  the  supreme  heavens, 
may,  or  might,  so  far  as  human  resistance  is  concerned, 
again  become  the  law  for  the  noblest  of  his  species.  A 
deep  feeling,  it  is  true,  exists  latently  in  human  beings 
of  something  perishable  in  evil.  Whatsoever  is  founded 
in  wickedness,  according  to  a  deep  misgiving  dispersed 
amongst  men,  must  be  tainted  with  corruption.  There 
might  seem  consolation  ;  but  a  man  who  reflects  is  not 
quite  so  sure  of  that.  As  a  commonplace  resounding 
in  schools,  it  may  be  justly  current  amongst  us,  that 
what  is  evil  by  nature  or  by  origin  must  be  transient. 
But  that  may  be  because  evil  in  all  human  things  is 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT,  23 

partial,  is  heterogeneous  ;  evil  mixed  with  good  ;  and 
the  two  natures,  by  their  mutual  enmity,  must  enter  into 
a  collision,  which  may  possibly  guarantee  the  final 
destruction  of  the  whole  compound.  Such  a  result 
may  not  threaten  a  nature  that  is  purely  and  totally 
evil,  that  is  homogeneously  evil.  Dark  natures  there 
may  be,  whose  essence  is  evil,  that  may  have  an  abiding 
root  in  the  system  of  the  universe  not  less  awfully  ex- 
empt from  change  than  the  mysterious  foundations  of 
God. 

This  is  dreadful.  Wickedness  that  is  immeasurable, 
in  connection  with  power  that  is  superhuman,  appals 
the  imagination.  Yet  this  is  a  combination  that  might 
easily  have  been  conceived  ;  and  a  wicked  god  still 
commands  a  mode  of  reverence.  But  that  feature  of 
the  pagan  pantheon,  which  I  am  contrasting  with  this, 
viz.,  that  no  pagan  deity  is  an  abstraction  but  a  vile 
concrete,  impresses  myself  with  a  subtler  sense  of  hor- 
ror ;  because  it  blends  the  hateful  with  a  mode  of  the 
ludicrous.  For  the  sake  of  explaining  myself  to  the 
non-philosophic  reader,  I  beg  him  to  consider  what  is 
the  sort  of  feeling  with  which  he  regards  an  ancient 
river-god,  or  the  presiding  nymph  of  a  fountain.  The 
impression  which  he  receives  is  pretty  much  like  that 
from  the  monumental  figure  of  some  allegoric  being, 
such  as  Faith  or  Hope,  Fame  or  Truth.  He  hardly 
believes  that  the  most  superstitious  Grecian  seriously 
believed  in  such  a  being  as  a  distinct  personality.  He 
feels  convinced  that  the  sort  of  personal  existence  as- 
cribed to  such  an  abstraction,  as  well  as  the  human 
shape,  arc  merely  modes  of  representing  and  drawing 
into  unity  a  variety  of  phenomena  and  agencies  that 


24  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

seem  one.,  by  means  of  their  unintcrmitting  continuity, 
and  because  they  tend  to  one  common  purpose.  Now, 
from  sucli  a  symbolic  god  as  this,  let  him  pass  to  Jupi- 
ter or  Mercury,  and  instantly  he  becomes  aware  of  a 
revolting  individuality.  He  sees  before  him  the  oppo- 
site pole  of  deity.  The  river-god  had  too  little  of  a 
concrete  character.  Jupiter  has  nothing  else.  In  Ju- 
piter you  read  no  incarnation  of  any  abstract  quality 
whatever :  he  represents  nothing  whatever  in  the  meta- 
physics of  the  universe.  Except  for  the  accident  of  his 
power,  he  is  merely  a  man.  He  has  a  character,  that 
is,  a  tendency  or  determination  to  this  quality  or  that, 
in  excess  ;  whereas  a  nature  truly  divine  must  be  in 
equilihrio  as  to  all  qualities,  and  comprehend  them  all, 
in  the  way  that  a  genus  comprehends  the  subordinate 
species.  He  has  even  a  personal  history  :  he  has 
passed  through  certain  adventures,  faced  certain  dan- 
gers, and  survived  hostilities  that,  at  one  time,  were 
doubtful  in  their  issue.  No  trace,  in  short,  appears,  in 
any  Grecian  god,  of  the  generic.  Whereas  we,  in  our 
Christian  ideas  of  God,  unconsciously,  and  without 
thinking  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  realize  Sir  Isaac's 
conceptions.  We  think  of  him  as  having  a  sort  of 
allegoric  generality,  liberated  from  the  bonds  of  the 
individual  ;  and  yet,  also,  as  the  most  awful  among 
natures,  having  a  conscious  personality.  He  is  diffused 
through  all  things,  present  eveiywhere,  and  yet  not 
the  less  present  locally.  He  is  at  a  distance  unap- 
proachable by  finite  creatures  ;  and  yet,  without  any 
contradiction,  (as  the  profound  St.  Paul  observes,)  '  not 
very  far '  from  every  one  of  us.  And  I  will  venture  to 
say,  that  many  a  poor  old  woman  has,  by  virtue  of  her 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  25 

Christian  inoculation,  Sir  Isaac's  great  idea  lurking  in 
her  mind  :  as  for  instance,  in  relation  to  any  of  God's 
attributes  ;  suppose  holiness  or  happiness,  she  feels, 
(though  analytically  she  could  not  explain,)  that  God  is 
not  holy  or  is  not  happy  by  way  of  participation,  after 
the  manner  of  other  beings  :  that  is,  he  does  not  draw 
happiness  from  a  fountain  separate  and  external  to 
himself,  and  common  to  other  creatures,  he  drawing 
more  and  they  drawing  less  ;  but  that  he  himself  is  the 
fountain  ;  that  no  other  being  can  have  the  least  pro- 
portion of  either  one  or  the  other  but  by  drawing  from 
that  fountain  ;  that  as  to  all  other  good  gifts,  that  as  to 
life  itself,  they  are,  in  man,  not  on  any  separate  tenure, 
not  primarily,  but  derivatively,  and  only  in  so  far  as 
God  enters  into  the  nature  of  man  ;  that  '  we  live  and 
move '  only  so  far  and  so  long  as  the  incomprehensible 
union  takes  place  between  the  human  spirit  and  the 
fontal  abyss  of  the  divine.  In  short,  here,  and  here 
only,  is  found  the  outermost  expansion,  the  centrifugal, 
of  the  TO  catholic,  united  with  the  innermost  centripetal 
of  the  personal  consciousness.  Had,  therefore,  the 
pagan  gods  been  less  detestable,  neither  impure  nor 
malignant,  they  could  not  have  won  a  salutary  venera- 
tion—  being  so  merely  concrete  individuals. 

Next,  it  must  have  degraded  the  gods,  (and  have 
made  them  instruments  of  degradation  for  man,)  that 
they  were,  one  and  all,  incarnations  ;  not,  as  even  the 
Christian  God  is,  for  a  transitoiy  moment  and  for  an 
eternal  purpose ;  but  essentially  and  by  overruling  ne- 
cessity. The  Greeks  could  not  conceive  of  spirituality. 
Neither  can  ice,  metaphysically,  assign  the  conditions 
of  the  spiritual ;  but,  practically,  we  all  feel  and  repre- 


26  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

sent  to  our  own  minds  the  agencies  of  God,  as  liberated 
from  bonds  of  space  and  time,  of  flesh  and  of  resistance. 
This  the  Greeks  could  not  feel,  could  not  represent. 
And  the  only  advantage  which  the  gods  'enjoyed  over 
the  worm  and  the  grub  was,  that  they,  (or  at  least  the 
Paladins  amongst  them — the  twelve  supreme  gods,) 
could  pass,  fluently,  from  one  incarnation  to  another. 

Thirdly.  Out  of  that  essential  bondage  to  flesh  arose 
a  dreadful  suspicion  of  something  worse  :  in  what  rela- 
tion did  the  pagan  gods  stand  to  the  abominable  phe- 
nomenon of  death  ?  It  is  not  by  uttering  pompous 
flatteries  of  ever-living  and  aii^qoTug  cut,  &c.,  that  a  poet 
could  intercept  the  searching  jealousies  of  human  pene- 
tration. These  are  merely  oriental  forms  of  compli- 
ment. And  here,  by  the  way,  as  elsewhere,  we  find 
Plato  vehemently  confuted  :  for  it  was  the  undue  exal- 
tation of  the  gods,  and  not  their  degradation,  which 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  frauds  of  poets.  Tradition, 
and  no  poetic  tradition,  absolutely  pointed  to  the  grave 
of  more  gods  than  one.  But  waiving  all  that  as  liable 
to  dispute,  one  thing  we  know,  from  the  ancients  them- 
selves, as  open  to  no  question,  that  all  the  gods  were 
hor7i ;  were  born  infants  ;  passed  through  the  stages  of 
helplessness  and  growth  ;  from  all  which  the  inference 
was  but  too  fatally  obvious.  Besides,  there  were  grand- 
fathers, and  even  great-grandfathers  in  the  Pantheon  ; 
some  of  these  were  confessedly  superannuated  ;  nay, 
some  had  disappeared.  Even  men,  who  knew  but 
little  of  Olympian  records,  knew  this,  at  least,  for  cer- 
tain, that  more  than  one  dynasty  of  gods  had  passed 
over  the  golden  stage  of  Olympus,  had  made  their  exit, 
and  were  hurrying  onward  to  oblivion.     It  was  matter 


OF   POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  27 

of  notoriety,  also,  that  all  these  gods  were  and  had 
been  liable  to  the  taint  of  sorrow  for  the  death  of  their 
earthly  children,  (as  the  Homeric  Jupiter  for  Sarpedon, 
Thetis  for  Achilles,  Calliope,  in  Euripides,  for  her 
blooming  Rhesus  ;)  all  were  liable  to  fear:  all  to  phys- 
ical pain ;  all  to  anxiety  ;  all  to  the  indefinite  menaces 
of  a  danger^  not  measurable.  Lookins;  backwards  or 
looking  forwards,  the  gods  beheld  enemies  that  attacked 
their  existence,  or  modes  of  decay,  (known  and  un- 
known.) which  gnawed  at  their  roots.  All  this  I  take 
the  trouble  to  insist  upon  :  not  as  though  it  could  be 
worth  any  man's  trouble,  at  this  day,  to  expose  (on  its 
own  account)  the  frailty  of  the  Pantheon,  but  with  a 
view  to  the  closer  estimate  of  the  Divine  idea  amongst 
men  ;  and  by  way  of  contrast  to  the  power  of  that  idea 
under  Christianity  :  since  I  contend  that,  such  as  is  the 
God  of  every  people,  such,  in  the  corresponding  fea- 
tures of  character,  will  be  that  people.  If  the  god  (like 
Moloch)  is  fierce,  the  people  will  be  cruel  ;  if  (like  ' 
Typhon)  a  destroying  energy,  the  people  will  be 
gloomy  ;  if  (like  the  Paphian  Venus)  libidinous,  the 
people  will  be  voluptuously  effeminate.  When  the 
gods  are  perishable,  man  cannot  have  the  grandeurs  of 
his  nature  developed  :  when  the  shadow  of  death  sits 
upon  the  highest  of  what  man  represents  to  himself  as 
celestial,  essential  blight  will  sit  for  ever  upon  human 
aspirations.  One  thing  only  remains  to  be  added  on 
this  subject :  Why  were  not  the  ancients  more  pro- 
foundly afflicted  by  the  treacherous  gleams  of  mortality 
in  their  gods?  How  was  it  that  they  could  forget,  for  a 
moment,  a  revelation  so  full  of  misery  ?  Since  not  only 
the  character  of  man  partly  depended  upon  the  quality 


28  ON    CHRISTIANITY   AS   AN    ORGAN 

of  his  god,  but  also  and  a  fortiori^  his  destiny  upon  the 
destiny  of  his  god.  But  the  reason  of  his  indifference 
to  the  divine  mortality  was  —  because,  at  any  rate,  the 
pagan  man's  connection  with  the  gods  terminated  at  his 
own  death.  Even  selfish  men  would  reconcile  them- 
selves to  an  earthquake,  which  should  swallow  up  all 
the  world  ;  and  the  most  unreasonable  man  has  pro- 
fessed his  readiness,  at  all  times,  to  die  with  a  dying 
universe  —  mundo  secum  pereunte,  mori. 

But,  thirdly,  the  gods  being  such,  in  what  rela- 
tion to  them  did  man  stand  ?  It  is  a  fact  hidden  from 
the  mass  of  the  ancients  themselves,  but  sufficiently 
attested,  that  there  was  an  ancient  and  secret  enmity 
between  the  whole  family  of  the  gods  and  the  human 
race.  This  is  confessed  by  Herodotus  as  a  persuasion 
spread  through  some  of  the  nations  amongst  which  he 
travelled  :  there  was  a  sort  of  truce,  indeed,  between 
the  parties  ;  temples,  whh  their  religious  services,  and 
their  votive  offerings,  recorded  this  truce.  But  below 
all  these  appearances  lay  deadly  enmity,  to  be  explained 
only  by  one  who  should  know  the  mysterious  history 
of  both  parties  from  the  eldest  times.  It  is  extraordi- 
nary, however,  that  Herodotus  should  rely,  for  this 
account,  upon  the  belief  of  distant  nations,  when  the 
same  belief  was  so  deeply  recorded  amongst  his  own 
countrymen  in  the  sublime  story  of  Prometheus. 
Much  9  of  the  sufferings  endured  by  Prometheus  was 
on  account  of  man,  whom  he  had  befriended  ;  and, 
hy  befriending,  had  defeated  the  malignity  of  Jove. 
According  to  some,  man  was  even  created  by  Pro- 
metheus :  but  no  accounts,  until  lying  Platonic  philos- 


I 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  29 

ophers  arose,  in  far  later  times,  represented  man  as 
created  by  Jupiter. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  Christianity  ;  pursuing  it  through 
the  functions  which  it  exercises  in  common  with  Pa- 
ganism, and  also  through  those  which  it  exercises  sepa- 
rately and  incommunicably. 

I.  As  to  the  Idea  of  God,  —  how  great  was  the 
chasm  dividing  the  Hebrew  God  from  all  gods  of  idol- 
atrous birth,  and  with  what  starry  grandeur  this  revela- 
tion of  Supreme  deity  must  have  wheeled  upwards  into 
the  field  of  human  contemplation,  when  first  surmount- 
ing the  steams  of  earth-born  heathenism,  I  need  not 
impress  upon  any  Christian  audience.  To  their  know- 
ledge little  could  be  added.  Yet  to  knoio  is  not  always 
to  feel :  and  without  a  correspondent  depth  of  feeling, 
there  is  in  moral  cases  no  effectual  knowledge.  Not 
the  understanding  is  sufficient  upon  such  ground,  but 
that  which  the  Scriptures  in  their  profound  philosophy 
entitle  the  '  understanding  heart.'  And  perhaps  few 
readers  will  have  adequately  appreciated  the  prodi- 
gious change  effected  in  the  theatre  of  the  human  spirit, 
by  the  transition,  sudden  as  the  explosion  of  light,  in  the 
Hebrew  cosmogony,  when,  from  the  caprice  of  a  fleshly 
god,  in  one  hour  man  mounted  to  a  justice  that  knew 
no  shadov/  of  change  ;  from  cruelty,  mounted  to  a  love 
which  was  inexhaustible  ;  from  gleams  of  essential  evil, 
to  a  holiness  that  could  not  be  fathomed  ;  from  a  power 
and  a  knowledge,  under  limitations  so  merely  and  ob- 
viously i°  human,  to  the  same  agencies  lying  underneath 
creation,  as  a  root  below  a  plant.  Not  less  awful  in 
power  was  the  transition  from  the  limitations  of  .^pace 
and  time  to  ubiquity  and  eternity,  from  the  familiar  to 


30  ON    CHRISTIANITY   AS    AN    ORGAN 

the  mysterious,  from  the  incarnate  to  the  spiritual. 
These  enormous  transitions  were  fitted  to  work  changes 
of  answering  magnitude  in  the  human  spirit.  The 
reader  can  hardly  make  any  mistake  as  to  this.  He 
must  concede  the  changes.  What  he  will  be  likely  to 
misconceive,  unless  he  has  reflected,  is  —  the  immen- 
sity of  these  changes.  And  another  mistake,  which  he 
is  even  more  likely  to  make,  is  this  :  he  will  imagine 
that  a  new  idea,  even  though  the  idea  of  an  object  so 
vast  as  God,  cannot  become  the  ground  of  any  revolu- 
tion more  than  intellectual  —  cannot  revolutionize  the 
moral  and  active  principles  in  man,  consequently  can- 
not lay  the  gi'ound  of  any  political  movement.  We 
shall  see.     But  next,  that  is,  — 

II.  Secondly,  as  to  the  idea  of  man's  relation  to  God, 
this,  were  it  capable  of  disjunction,  would  be  even  more 
of  a  revolutionary  idea  than  the  idea  of  God.  But  the 
one  idea  is  enlinked  with  the  other.  In  Paganism,  as 
I  have  said,  the  higher  you  ascend  towards  the  original 
fountains  of  the  religion,  the  more  you  leave  behind 
the  frauds,  forgeries,  and  treacheries  of  philosophy  ;  so 
much  the  more  clearly  you  descry  the  odious  truth  — 
that  man  stood  in  the  relation  of  a  superior  to  his  gods, 
as  respected  all  moral  qualities  of  any  value,  but  in  the 
relation  of  an  inferior  as  respected  physical  power. 
This  was  a  position  of  the  two  parties  fatal,  by  itself,  to 
all  grandeur  of  moral  aspirations.  Whatever  was  good 
or  corrigibly  bad,  man  saw  associated  with  weakness  ; 
and  power  was  sealed  and  guaranteed  to  absolute  wick- 
edness. The  evil  disposition  in  man  to  worship  suc- 
cess, was  strengthened  by  this  mode  of  superiority  in 
the  gods.    Merit  was  disjoined  from  prosperity.    Even 


OF   rOLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  31 

merit  of  a  lower  class,  merit  in  things  morally  indiffer- 
ent, was  not  so  decidedly  on  the  side  of  the  gods  as 
to  reconcile  man  to  the  reasonableness  of  their  yoke. 
They  were  compelled  to  acquiesce  in  a  government 
which  they  did  not  regard  as  just.  The  gods  were 
stronger,  but  not  much  ;  they  had  the  unfair  advantage 
of  standing  over  the  heads  of  men,  and  of  wings  for 
flight  or  for  manoeuvring.  Yet  even  so,  it  was  clearly 
the  opinion  of  Homer's  age,  that,  in  a  fair  fight,  the 
gods  might  have  been  found  liable  to  defeat.  The 
gods  again  were  generally  beautiful :  but  not  more  so 
than  the  elite  of  mankind  ;  else  why  did  these  gods, 
both  male  and  female,  continually  persecute  our  race 
with  their  odious  love  t  which  love,  be  it  observed, 
uniformly  brought  ruin  upon  its  objects.  Intellectually 
the  gods  were  undoubtedly  below  men.  They  pre- 
tended to  no  great  works  in  philosophy,  in  legislation, 
or  in  the  fine  arts,  except  only  that,  as  to  one  of  these 
arts,  viz.  poetry,  a  single  god  vaunted  himself  greatly 
in  simple  ages.  But  he  attempted  neither  a  tragedy 
nor  an  epic  poem.  Even  in  what  he  did  attempt,  it  is 
worth  while  to  follow  his  career.  His  literary  fate  was 
what  might  have  been  expected.  After  the  Persian 
war,  the  reputation  of  his  verses  rapidly  decayed. 
Wits  arose  in  Athens,  who  laughed  so  furiously  at  his 
style  and  his  metre,  in  the  Delphic  oracles,  that  at 
length  some  echoes  of  their  scoffing  began  to  reach 
Delphi  ;  upon  which  the  god  and  his  inspired  ministers 
became  sulky,  and  finally  took  refuge  in  prose,  as  the 
only  shelter  they  could  think  of  from  the  caustic  venom 
of  Athenian  malice. 

These  were  the  miserable  relations  of  man  to  the 


32  ON    CHRISTIANITY   AS    AN    ORGAN 

Pagan  gods.  Every  thing,  which  it  is  worth  doing  at 
all,  man  could  do  better.  Now  it  is  some  feature  of 
alleviation  in  a  servile  coiulition,  if  the  lord  appears  by 
natural  endowments  superior  to  his  slave  ;  or  at  least 
it  embhters  the  degradation  of  slavery,  if  he  does  7iot. 
Greatly,  therefore,  must  human  interests  have  suffered, 
had  this  jealous  approximation  of  the  two  parties  been 
the  sole  feature  noticeable  in  the  relations  between 
them.  But  there  was  a  worse.  There  was  an  original 
enmity  between  man  and  the  Pantheon;  not  the  sort  of 
enmity  which  we  Christians  ascribe  to  our  God  ;  that 
is  but  a  figure  of  speech  :  and  even  there  is  a  deriva- 
tive enmity  ;  an  enmity  founded  on  something  in  man 
suhsequent  to  his  creation,  and  having  a  I'ansom  annexed 
to  it.  But  the.  enmity  of  the  heathen  gods  was  original 
—  that  is,  to  the  very  nature  of  man,  and  as  though 
man  had  in  some  stage  of  his  career  been  their  rival ; 
which  indeed  he  was,  if  we  adopt  Milton's  hypothesis 
of  the  gods  as  ruined  angels,  and  of  man  as  created  to 
supply  the  vacancy  thus  arising  in  heaven. 

Now,  from  this  dreadful  scheme  of  relations,  between 
the  human  and  divine,  under  Paganism,  turn  to  the  re- 
lations under  Christianity.  It  is  remarkable  that  even 
here,  according  to  a  doctrine  current  amongst  many  of 
the  elder  divines,  man  was  naturally  superior  to  the 
race  of  beings  immediately  ranking  above  him.  Jeremy 
Taylor  notices  the  obscure  tradition,  that  the  angelic 
order  was,  by  original  constitution,  inferior  to  man  ; 
but  this  original  precedency  had  been  reversed  for  the 
present,  by  the  fact  that  man,  in  his  higher  nature,  was 
morally  ruined,  whereas  the  angelic  race  had  not  for- 
feited the  perfection  of  their  nature,  though  otherwise 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  33 

an  inferior  nature.  Waiving  a  question  so  inscrutable 
as  this,  we  know,  at  least,  that  no  allegiance  or  homage 
is  required  from  man  towards  this  doubtfully  superior 
race.  And  when  man  first  finds  himself  called  upon  to 
pay  tributes  of  this  nature  as  to  a  being  inimitably  his 
superior,  he  is  at  the  same  moment  taught  by  a  revela- 
tion that  this  awful  superior  is  the  same  who  created 
him,  and  that  in  a  sense  more  than  figurative,  he  him- 
self is  the  child  of  God.  There  stand  the  two  relations,' 
as  declared  in  Paganism  and  in  Christianity,  —  both 
probably  true.  In  the  former,  man  is  the  essential 
enemy  of  the  gods,  though  sheltered  by  some  conven- 
tional arrangement ;  in  the  latter,  he  is  the  son  of  God. 
In  his  own  image  God  made  him  :  and  the  very  central 
principle  of  his  religion  is,  that  God  for  a  great  purpose 
assumed  his  own  human  nature  ;  a  mode  of  incarnation 
which  could  not  be  conceivable,  unless  through  some 
divine  principle  common  to  the  two  natures,  and  form- 
ing the  nexus  between  them. 

With  these  materials  it  is,  and  others  resembling 
these,  that  Christianity  has  carried  forward  the  work  of 
human  progression.  The  ethics  of  Christianity  it  was, 
—  new  ethics  and  unintelligible,  in  a  degree  as  yet  but 
little  understood,  to  the  old  pagan  nations,  —  which  fur- 
nished the  rudder,  or  guidance,  for  a  human  revolution  ; 
but  the  mysteries  of  Christianity  it  was,  —  new  Eleu- 
sinian  shows,  presenting  God  under  a  new  form  and 
aspect,  presenting  man  under  a  new  relation  to  God, — 
which  furnished  the  oars  and  sails,  the  moving  forces, 
for  the  advance  of  this  revolution. 

It  was  my  intention  to  have  shown  how  this  great 
idea  of  man's  relation  to  God,  connected  with  the  pre- 
3 


34  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

vious  idea  of  God,  had  first  caused  the  state  of  slavery 
to  be  regarded  as  an  evil.  Next,  I  proposed  to  show 
how  charitable  institutions,  not  one  of  which  existed  in 
pagan  ages,  hospitals,  and  asylums  of  all  classes,  had 
arisen  under  the  same  idea  brooding  over  man  from 
age  to  age.  Thirdly,  I  should  have  attempted  to  show, 
that  from  the  same  mighty  influence  had  grown  up  a 
social  influence  of  woman,  which  did  not  exist  in  pagan 
ages,  and  will  hereafter  be  applied  to  greater  purposes. 
But,  for  want  of  room,  I  confine  myself  to  saying  a  few 
words  on  war,  and  the  mode  in  which  it  will  be  extin- 
guished by  Christianity. 

War.  —  This  is  amongst  the  foremost  of  questions 
that  concern  human  progress,  and  it  is  one  which,  of 
all  great  questions,  (the  question  of  slavery  not  ex- 
cepted, nor  even  the  question  of  the  fi\ave-trade,)  has 
travelled  forward  the  most  rapidly  into  public  favor. 
Thirty  years  ago,  there  was  hardly  a  breath  stirring 
against  war,  as  the  sole  natural  resource  of  national 
anger  or  national  competition.  Hardly  did  a  wish  rise, 
at  intervals,  in  that  direction,  or  even  a  protesting  sigh, 
over  the  calamities  of  war.  And  if  here  and  there  a 
contemplative  author  uttered  such  a  sigh,  it  was  in  the 
spirit  of  mere  hopeless  sorrow,  that  mourned  over  an 
evil  apparently  as  inalienable  from  man  as  hunger,  as 
death,  as  the  frailty  of  human  expectations.  Cowper, 
about  sixty  years  ago,  had  said, 

'  War  is  a.  game  •whicli,  were  their  subjects  wise, 
Kings  would  not  play  at.' 

But  Cowper  would  not  have  said  this,  had  he  not 
been  nearly  related  to  the  Whig  house  of  Panshanger. 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  35 

Every  Whig  thought  it  a   duty  occasionally  to   look 

fiercely  at   kings,   saying  —  'D ,  who's   afraid?' 

pretty  much  as  a  regular  John  Bull,  in  the  lower 
classes,  expresses  his  independence  by  defying  the 
peerage,  — '  A  lord  !  do  you  say  ?  what  care  I  for  a 
lord  ?  I  value  a  lord  no  more  than  a  button  top ; ' 
whilst,  in  fact,  he  secretly  reveres  a  lord  as  being 
usually  amongst  the  most  ancient  of  landed  proprietors, 
and,  secondly,  amongst  the  richest.  The  scourge  of 
kingship  was  what  Cowper  glanced  at,  rather  than  the 
scourge  of  war  ;  and  in  any  case  the  condition  which 
he  annexed  to  his  suggestion  of  relief,  is  too  remote  to 
furnish  much  consolation  for  cynics  like  myself,  or  the 
reader.  If  war  is  to  cease  only  when  subjects  become 
wise,  we  need  not  contract  the  scale  of  our  cannon- 
founderies  until  the  millennium.  Sixty  years  ago, 
therefore,  the  abolition  of  war  looked  as  unprosperous 
a  speculation  as  Dr.  Darwin's  scheme  for  improving 
our  British  climate  by  hauling  out  all  the  icebergs  from 
the  polar  basin  in  seasons  when  the  wind  sate  fair  for 
the  tropics  ;  by  which  means  these  wretched  annoyers 
of  our  peace  would  soon  find  themselves  in  quarters 
too  hot  to  hold  them,  and  would  disappear  as  rapidly 
as  sugar-candy  in  children's  mouths.  Others,  however, 
inclined  rather  to  the  Ancient  Mariner's  scheme,  by 
shooting  an  albatross  :  — 

'  'T-was  right,  said  tliey,  such  birds  to  shoot, 
That  bring  the  frost  and  snow.' 

Scarcely  more  hopeless  than  these  crusades  against 
frost,  were  any  of  the  serious  plans  which  had  then 
been  proposed  for  the  extirpation  of  war.     St.  Pierre 


36  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

contributed  '■  so7i  petite  possible'  to  this  desirable  end, 
in  the  shape  of  an  essay  towards  the  idea  of  a  perpetual 
peace  ;  Kant,  the  great  professor  of  Kosnigsberg,  sub- 
scribed to  the  same  benevolent  scheme  his  little  essay 
under  the  same  title  ;  and  others  in  England  subscribed 
a  guinea  each  to  the  fund  for  the  suppression  of  war. 
These  efforts,  one  and  all,  spent  their  fire  as  vainly  as 
Darwin  spent  his  wrath  against  the  icebergs :  the  ice- 
bergs are  as  big  and  as  cold  as  ever  ;  and  war  is  still, 
like  a  basking  snake,  ready  to  rear  his  horrid  crest  on 
the  least  rustling  in  the  forests. 

But  in  quarters  more  powerful  than  either  purses  of 
gold  or  scholastic  reveries,  there  has,  since  the  days  of 
Kant  and  Cowper,  begun  to  gather  a  menacing  thunder- 
cloud against  war.  The  nations,  or  at  least  the  great 
leading  nations,  are  beginning  to  set  their  faces  against 
it.  War,  it  is  felt,  comes  under  the  denunciation  of 
Christianity,  by  the  havoc  which  it  causes  amongst 
those  who  bear  God's  image  ;  of  political  economy,  by 
its  destruction  of  property  and  human  labor  ;  of  rational 
logic,  by  the  frequent  absurdity  of  its  pretexts.  The 
wrong,  which  is  put  forth  as  the  ostensible  ground  of 
the  particular  war,  is  oftentimes  not  of  a  nature  to  be 
redressed  by  war,  or  is  even  forgotten  in  the  course  of 
the  war ;  and,  secondly,  the  war  prevents  another 
course  which  might  have  redressed  the  wrong  :  viz., 
temperate  negotiation,  or  neutral  arbitration.  These 
things  were  always  true,  and,  indeed,  heretofore  more 
flagrantly  true  :  but  the  difference,  in  favor  of  our  own 
times,  is,  that  they  are  now  felt  to  be  true.  Formerly, 
the  truths  were  seen,  but  not  felt  :  they  were  inopera- 
tive truths,  lifeless,  and  unvalued.     Now,  on  the  other 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT,  37 

hand,  in  England,  America,  France,  societies  are  rising 
for  making  war  upon  war  ;  and  it  is  a  striking  proof  of 
the  progress  made  by  such  societies,  that,  some  two 
years  ago,  a  deputation  from  one  of  them  being  pre- 
sented to  King  Louis  Philippe,  received  from  him  — 
not  the  sort  of  vague  answer  which  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, but  a  sincere  one,  expressed  in  very  encourag- 
ing words. ^'  Ominous  to  himself  this  might  have  been 
thought  by  the  superstitious,  who  should  happen  to 
recollect  the  sequel  to  a  French  king,  of  the  very  ear- 
liest movement  in  this  direction  :  the  great  (but  to  this 
hour  mysterious)  design  of  Henry  IV.  in  1610,  was 
supposed  by  many  to  be  a  plan  of  this  very  nature,  for 
enforcing  a  general  and  permanent  peace  on  Christen- 
dom, by  means  of  an  armed  intervention ;  and  no 
sooner  had  it  partially  transpired  through  traitorous 
evidence,  or  through  angry  suspicion,  than  his  own 
assassination  followed. 

Shall  I  offend  the  reader  by  doubting,  after  all, 
whether  war  is  not  an  evil  still  destined  to  survive 
through  several  centuries  ?  Great  progress  has  already 
been  made.  In  the  two  leading  nations  of  the  earth, 
war  can  no  longer  be  made  with  the  levity  which  pro- 
voked Cowper's  words  two  generations  back.  France 
is  too  ready  to  fight  for  mere  bubbles  of  what  she  calls 
glory.  But  neither  in  France  nor  England  could  a  war 
now  be  undertaken  without  a  warrant  from  the  popular 
voice.  This  is  a  great  step  in  advance  ;  but  the  final 
step  for  its  extinction  will  be  taken  by  a  new  and 
Christian  code  of  international  law.  This  cannot  be 
consummated  until  Christian  philosophy  shall  have 
traversed  the  earth,  and  reorganized  the  structure  of 
society. 


38  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

But,  finally,  and  (as  regards  extent,  though  not  -as 
regards  intensity  of  effect)  far  beyond  all  other  political 
powers  of  Christianity,  is  the  power,  the  demiurgic 
power  of  this  religion  over  the  kingdoms  of  human 
opinion.  Did  it  ever  strike  the  reader,  that  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  although  so  frantically  republican,  and, 
in  so7ne  of  their  institutions,  so  democratic,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  never  developed  the  idea  of  representative 
government,  either  as  applied  to  legislation  or  to  ad- 
ministration ?  The  elective  principle  was  widely  used 
amongst  them.  Nay,  the  nicer  casuistries  of  this  prin- 
ciple had  been  latterly  discussed.  The  separate  advan- 
tages of  open  or  of  secret  voting,  had  been  the  subject 
of  keen  dispute  in  t)ie  political  circles  of  Rome  ;  and 
the  art  was  well  understood  of  disturbing  the  natural 
course  of  the  public  suffrage,  by  varying  the  modes  of 
combining  the  voters  under  the  different  forms  of  the 
Comitia.  Public  authority  and  jurisdiction  were  created 
and  modified  by  the  elective  principle  ;  but  never  was 
this  principle  applied  to  the  creation  or  direction  of 
public  opinion.  The  senate  of  Rome,  for  instance, 
like  our  own  sovereign,  represented  the  national  ma- 
jesty, and,  to  a  certain  degree,  continued  to  do  so  for 
centuries  after  this  majesty  had  received  a  more  imme- 
diate representative  in  the  person  of  the  reigning 
CcEsar.  The  senate,  like  our  own  sovereign,  repre- 
sented the  grandeur  of  the  nation,  the  hospitality  of  the 
nation  to  illustrious  strangers,  and  the  gratitude  of  the 
nation  in  the  distribution  of  honors.  For  the  senate 
continued  to  be  the  fountain  of  honors,  even  to  Csesar 
himself:  the  titles  of  Germanicus,  Britannicus,  Dalma- 
ticus,  &c.  (which  may  be  viewed  as  peerages,)  the 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  39 

privilege  of  precedency,  the  privilege  of  wearing  a 
laurel  diadem,  &c.  (which  may  be  viewed  as  the  Gar- 
ter, Bath,  Thistle,)  all  were  honors  conferred  by  the 
senate.  But  the  senate,  no  more  than  our  own  sove- 
reign ever  represented,  by  any  one  act  or  function,  the 
public  opinion.  How  was  this  ?  Strange,  indeed,  that 
so  mighty  a  secret  as  that  of  delegating  public  opinions 
to  the  custody  of  elect  representatives,  a  secret  which 
has  changed  the  face  of  the  world,  should  have  been 
missed  by  nations  applying  so  vast  an  energy  to  the 
whole  theory  of  public  administration.  But  the  truth, 
however  paradoxical,  is,  that  in  Greece  and  Rome  no 
body  of  public  opinions  existed  that  could  have  fur- 
nished a  standing  ground  for  adverse  parties,  or  that 
consequently  could  have  required  to  be  represented. 
In  all  the  dissensions  of  Rome,  from  the  secessions  of 
the  Plebs  to  the  factions  of  the  Gracchi,  of  Marius  and 
Sylla,  of  Cajsar  and  Pompey  ;  in  all  the  caastg  of  the 
Grecian  republics,  —  the  contest  could  no  more  be  de- 
scribed as  a  contest  of  opinion,  than  could  the  feuds  of 
our  buccaneers  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  part- 
ing company,  or  fighting  for  opposite  principles  of 
dividing  the  general  booty.  One  faction  has,  another 
sought  to  have,  a  preponderant  share  of  power  :  but 
these  struggles  never  look  the  shape,  even  in  pretence, 
of  differences  that  moved  tlirough  the  conflict  of  prin- 
ciples. The  case  was  alwaj-s  the  simple  one  of  power 
matched  against  power,  faction  against  faction,  usage 
against  innovation.  It  was  not  that  the  patricians  de- 
luded themselves  by  any  speculative  views  into  the 
refusal  of  intermarriages  with  the  plebeians  :  it  was  not 
as  upon  any  opinion  that  they  maintained  the  contest, 


40  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

(such  as  at  this  day  divides  ourselves  from  the  French 
upon  the  question  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  social 
rank  of  literar}'  men)  but  simply  as  upon  a  fact :  they 
appealed  to  evidences  not  to  speculations  ;  to  usage, 
not  to  argument.  They  were  in  possession,  and  fought 
against  change,  not  as  inconsistent  with  a  theory,  but 
as  hostility  to  an  interest.  In  the  contest  of  Ctesar 
with  the  oligarchic  knavery  of  Cicero,  Cato,  and  Pom- 
pey,  no  possible  exercise  of  representative  functions 
(had  the  people  possessed  them)  could  have  been  ap- 
plied beneficially  to  the  settlement  of  the  question  at 
issue.  Law,  and  the  abuses  of  law,  good  statutes  and 
evil  customs,  had  equally  thrown  the  public  power  into 
a  settlement  fatal  to  the  public  welfare.  Not  any  decay 
of  public  virtue,  but  increase  of  poverty  amongst  the 
inferior  citizens,  had  thrown  the  suffrages,  and  conse- 
quently the  honors  and  powers  of  the  state,  into  the 
hands  of  some  forty  or  fifty  houses,  rich  enough  to 
bribe,  and  bribing  systematically.  Caesar,  undertaking 
to  correct  a  state  of  disease  which  would  else  have 
convulsed  the  republic  every  third  year  by  civil  war, 
knew  that  no  arguments  could  be  available  against  a 
competition  of  mere  interests.  The  remedy  lay,  not 
through  opposition  speeches  in  the  senate,  or  from  the 
rostra,  —  not  through  pamphlets  or  journals,  —  but 
through  a  course  of  intense  cudgelling.  This  he  hap- 
pily accomplished  ;  and  by  that  means  restored  Rome 
for  centuries,  —  not  to  the  aspiring  condition  which  she 
once  held,  but  to  an  immunity  from  annual  carnage, 
and  in  other  respects  to  a  condition  of  prosperity 
which,  if  less  than  during  her  piopular  state,  was 
greater  than  any  else  attainable  after  that  popular  state 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  41 

had  become  impossible,  from  changes  in  the  composi- 
tion of  society. 

Here,  and  in  all  other  critical  periods  of  ancient  re- 
publics, we  shall  find  that  opinions  did  not  exist  as  the 
grounds  offend,  nor  could  by  any  dexterity  have  been 
applied  to  the  settlement  of  feuds.  Whereas,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  ourselves  for  centuries,  and  latterly 
with  the  French,  no  public  contest  has  arisen,  or  does 
now  exist,  without  fighting  its  way  through  every  stage 
of  advance  by  appeals  to  public  opinion.  If,  for  in- 
stance, an  improved  tone  of  public  feeling  calls  for  a 
gradual  mitigation  of  army  punishments,  the  quarrel 
becomes  instantly  an  intellectual  one  :  and  much  infor- 
mation is  brought  forward,  which  throws  light  upon 
human  nature  generally.  But  in  Rome,  such  a  discus- 
sion would  have  been  stopped  summarily,  as  interfering 
with  the  discretional  power  of  the  Pra^torium.  To  take 
the  vitis,  or  cane,  from  the  hands  of  the  centurion,  was 
a  perilous  change  ;  but,  perilous  or  not,  must  be  com- 
mitted to  the  judgment  of  the  particular  imperator,  or 
of  his  legatus.  The  executive  business  of  the  Roman 
exchequer,  again,  could  not  have  been  made  the  sub- 
ject of  public  discussion  ;  not  only  because  no  sufficient 
material  for  judgment  could,  under  the  want  of  a  public 
press,  have  been  gathered,  except  from  the  parties  in- 
terested in  all  its  abuses,  but  also  because  these  parties 
(a  faction  amongst  the  equestrian  order)  could  have 
effectually  overthrown  any  counter-faction  formed 
amongst  parties  not  personally  ajfected  by  the  question. 
The  Roman  institution  of  cUentda  —  which  iiad  out- 
lived its  early  uses  —  does  any  body  imagine  that  this 
was  open  to  investigation  .''     The  influence  of  murder- 


42  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

ous  riots  would  easily  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon 
it,  but  not  the  light  of  public  opinion.  Even  if  public 
opinion  could  liave  been  evoked  in  those  days,  or 
trained  to  combined  action,  insuperable  difficulties 
would  have  arisen  in  adjusting  its  force  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  Roman  provinces  and  allies.  Any  arrange- 
ment that  was  practicable,  would  have  obtained  an 
influence  for  these  parties,  either  dangerous  to  the 
supreme  section  of  the  empire,  or  else  nugatory  for 
each  of  themselves.  It  is  a  separate  consideration, 
that  through  total  defect  of  cheap  instruments  for 
communication,  whether  personally  or  in  the  way  of 
thought,  public  opinion  must  always  have  moved  in  the 
dark  :  what  I  chiefly  assert  is,  that  the  feuds  bearing  at 
all  upon  public  interests,  never  did  turn,  or  could  have 
turned,  upon  any  collation  of  opinions.  And  two  things 
must  strengthen  the  reader's  conviction  upon  this  point, 
viz.  first,  that  no  public  meetings  (such  as  with  us 
carry  on  the  weight  of  public  business  throughout  the 
empire)  were  ever  called  in  Rome  ;  secondly,  that  in 
the  regular  and  '  official '  meetings  of  the  people,  no 
social  interest  was  ever  discussed,  but  only  some  polit- 
ical interest. 

Now,  on  the  other  hand,  amongst  ourselves,  every 
question,  that  is  large  enough  to  engage  public  interest, 
though  it  should  begin  as  a  mere  comparison  of  strength 
with  strength,  almost  immediately  travels  forward  into 
a  comparison  of  right  witli  rights,  or  of  duty  with  duty. 
A  mere  fiscal  question  of  restraint  upon  importation 
from  this  or  that  particular  quarter,  passes  into  a  ques- 
tion of  colonial  rights.  Arrangements  of  convenience 
for  the  management  of  the  pauper,  or  the  debtor,  or 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  43 

the  criminal,  or  the  war-captive,  become  the  occasions 
of  profound  investigations  into  the  rights  of  persons 
occupying  those  relations.  Sanatory  ordinances  for 
the  protection  of  public  health  ;  such  as  quarantine, 
fever  hospitals,  draining,  vaccination,  &c.,  connect 
themselves,  in  the  earliest  stages  of  their  discussion, 
with  the  general  consideration  of  the  duties  which  the 
state  owes  to  its  subjects.  If  education  is  to  be  pro- 
moted by  public  counsels,  every  step  of  the  inquiry 
applies  itself  to  the  consideration  of  the  knowledge  to 
be  communicated,  and  of  the  limhs  within  which  any 
section  of  religious  partisanship  can  be  safely  author- 
ized to  interfere.  If  coercion,  beyond  the  warrant  of 
the  ordinary  law,  is  to  be  applied  as  a  remedy  for  local 
outrages,  a  tumult  of  opinions  arises  instantly,  as  to  the 
original  causes  of  the  evil,  as  to  the  sufficiency  of  the 
subsisting  laws  to  meet  its  pressure,  and  as  to  the 
modes  of  connecting  enlarged  powers  in  the  magistrate 
with  the  minimum  of  offence  to  the  general  rights  of  the 
subject. 

Everywhere,  in  short,  some  question  of  duty  and 
responsibility  arises  to  face  us  in  any  the  smallest  pub- 
lic interest  that  can  become  the  subject  of  public  opin- 
ion. Questions,  in  fact,  that  fall  short  of  this  dignity  ; 
questions  that  concern  public  convenience  only,  and  do 
not  wear  any  moral  aspect,  such  as  the  bullion  question, 
never  do  become  subjects  of  public  opinion.  It  cannot 
be  said  in  which  direction  lies  the  bias  of  public  opin- 
ion. In  the  very  possibility  of  interesting  the  public 
judgment,  is  involved  the  certainty  of  wearing  some 
relation  to  moral  principles.  Hence  the  ardor  of  our 
public  disputes  ;  for  no  man  views,  without  concern,  a 


44  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN 

great  moral  principle  darkened  by  party  motives,  or 
placed  in  risk  by  accident  :  hence  the  dignity  and  ben- 
efit of  our  public  disputes  ;  hence,  also,  their  ultimate 
relation  to  the  Christian  faith.  We  do  not,  indeed,  in 
these  days,  as  did  our  homely  ancestors  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  cite  texts  of  Scripture  as 
themes  for  senatorial  commentary  or  exegesis  ;  but  the 
virtual  reference  to  scriptural  principles  is  now  a  thou- 
sand times  more  frequent.  The  great  principles  of 
Christian  morality  are  now  so  interwoven  with  our 
habits  of  thinking,  that  we  appeal  to  them  no  longer  as 
scriptural  authorities,  but  as  the  natural  suggestions  of 
a  sound  judgment.  For  instance,  in  the  case  of  any 
wrong  offered  to  the  Hindoo  races,  now  so  entirely  de- 
pendent upon  our  wisdom  and  justice,  we  British '2 
immediately,  by  our  solemnity  of  investigation,  testify 
our  sense  of  the  deep  responsibility  to  India  with  which 
our  Indian  supremacy  has  invested  us.  We  make  no 
mention  of  the  Christian  oracles.  Yet  where,  then, 
have  we  learned  this  doctrine  of  far-stretching  respon- 
sibility ?  In  all  pagan  systems  of  morality,  there  is  the 
vaguest  and  slightest  appreciation  of  such  relations  as 
connect  us  with  our  colonies.  But,  from  the  profound 
philosophy  of  Scripture,  we  have  learned  that  no  rela- 
'tions  whatever,  not  even  those  of  property,  can  connect 
us  with  even  a  brute  animal,  but  that  we  contract  con- 
current obligations  of  justice  and  mercy. 

In  this  age,  then,  public  interests  move  and  prosper 
tlirough  conflicts  of  opinion.  Secondly,  as  I  have  en- 
deavored to  show,  public  opinion  cannot  settle,  power- 
fully, upon  any  question  that  is  not  essentially  a  moral 
question.     And,  thirdly,  in  all  moral  questions,  we,  of 


OF    POLITICAL    MOVEMENT.  45 

Christian  nations,  are  compelled,  by  habit  and  training, 
as  well  as  other  causes,  to  derive  our  first  principles, 
consciously  or  not,  from  the  Scriptures.  It  is,  there- 
fore, through  the  doctrinalily  of  our  religion  that  we 
derive  arms  for  all  moral  questions  ;  and  it  is  as  moral 
questions  that  any  political  disputes  much  affect  us. 
The  daily  conduct,  therefore,  of  all  great  political  in- 
terests, throws  us  unconsciously  upon  the  first  principles 
which  we  all  derive  from  Christianity.  And,  in  this 
respect,  we  are  more  advantageously  placed,  by  a  very 
noticeable  distinction,  than  the  professors  of  the  two 
other  doctrinal  religions.  The  Koran  having  pirated 
many  sentiments  from  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian 
systems,  could  not  but  offer  some  rudiments  of  moral 
judgment ;  yet,  because  so  much  of  these  rudiments  is 
stolen,  the  whole  is  incoherent,  and  does  not  form  a 
system  of  ethics.  In  Judaism,  again,  the  special  and 
insulated  situation  of  the  Jews  has  unavoidably  im- 
pressed an  exclusive  bias  upon  its  principles.  In  both 
codes  the  rules  are  often  of  restricted  and  narrow  ap- 
plication. But,  in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  the  rules 
are  so  comprehensive  and  large  as  uniformly  to  furnish 
the  major  proposition  of  a  syllogism  ;  whilst  the  partic- 
ular act  under  discussion,  wearing,  perhaps,  some 
modern  name,  naturally  is  not  directly  mentioned  :  and 
to  bring  this,  in  the  minor  proposition,  under  the  prin- 
ciple contained  in  tiic  major,  is  a  task  left  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  inquirer  in  each  particular  case.  Some- 
thing is  here  intrusted  to  individual  understanding; 
whereas  in  the  Koran,  from  the  circumstantiality  of  the 
rule,  you  are  obliged  mechanically  to  rest  in  the  letter 
of  the   precept.     The  Christian  Scriptures,  therefore, 


46  ON    CHRISTIANITY    AS    AN    ORGAN,    ETC. 

not  only  teach,  but  train  the  mind  to  habits  of  self- 
teaching  in  all  moral  questions,  by  enforcing  more  or 
less  of  activity  in  applying  the  rule  ;  that  is,  in  sub- 
suming the  given  case  proposed  under  the  scriptural 
principle. 

Hence  it  is  certain,  and  has  been  repeatedly  illus- 
trated, that  whilst  the  Christian  faith,  in  collision  with 
others,  would  inevitably  rouse  to  the  most  active  fer- 
mentation of  minds,  the  Mahometan  (as  also  doctrinal 
but  unsystematical)  would  have  the  same  effect,  in 
kind,  but  far  feebler  in  degree  ;  and  an  idolatrous 
religion  would  have  no  such  effect  at  all.  Agreeably 
to  this  scale,  some  years  ago,  a  sect  of  reforming  or 
fanatical  Mahometans,  in  Bengal, ^3  commenced  a  per- 
secution of  the  surrounding  Hindoos.  At  length,  a  re- 
action took  place  on  the  part  of  the  idolaters,  but  in 
what  temper  ?  Bitter  enough,  and  so  far  alarming  as 
to  call  down  a  government  interference  with  troops 
and  artillery,  but  yet  with  no  signs  of  religious  retalia- 
tion. That  was  a  principle  of  movement  which  the 
Hindoos  could  not  understand  :  their  retaliation  was 
simply  to  the  personal  violence  they  had  suffered. 
Such  is  the  inertia  of  a  mere  cultus.  And,  in  the  other 
extreme,  if  we  Christians,  in  our  intercourse  with  both 
Hindoos  and  Mahometans,  were  not  sternly  reined  up 
by  the  vigilance  of  the  local  governments,  no  long  time 
would  pass  before  all  India  would  be  incurably  con- 
vulsed by  disorganizing  feuds. 


NOTES. 


Note  1.     Page  2. 
•  Davk  with  excessive  bright.'     Paradise  Lost.    Book  lU. 

Note  2.     Page  4. 

'  That  obscure  term  ;  '  — i.  e.  not  obscure  as  regards  the  use 
of  the  term,  or  its  present  value,  but  as  regards  its  original  gen- 
esis, or  what  in  civil  law  is  called  the  dedudio.  Under  what 
angle,  under  what  aspect,  or  relation,  to  the  field  which  it  con- 
cerns did  the  term  religion  originally  come  forward  ?  The  gen- 
eral field,  overlooked  by  religion,  is  the  ground  which  lies  between 
the  spirit  of  man  and  the  supernatural  world.  At  present,  under 
the  humblest  conception  of  religion,  the  human  spirit  is  supposed 
to  be  interested  in  such  a  field  by  the  conscience  and  the  nobler 
affections  But  I  suspect  that  originally  these  great  faculties 
were  absolutely  excluded  from  the  point  of  view.  Probably  the 
relation  between  spiritual  terrors  and  man's  power  of  propitia- 
tion, was  tlie  problem  to  which  the  word  religion  formed  the 
answer.  Pieligion  meant  apparently,  in  the  infancies  of  the  va- 
rious idolatries,  that  latreia,  or  service  of  sycophantic  fear,  by 
which,  as  the  most  approved  method  of  approach,  man  was  able 
to  conciliate  the  favor,  or  to  buy  off  the  malice  of  supernatural 
powers.  In  all  Pagan  nations,  it  is  probable  that  religion  would, 
on  the  whole,  be  a  degrading  influence  ;  although  I  see,  even  for 
iuch  nations,  two  cases,  at  the  least,  where  the  uses  of  a  religion 
would  be  indispensable;  viz.  for  the  sanction  of  oaths,  and  as  a 


48  CHRISTIANITY. 

channel  for  gratitude  not  pointing  to  a  human  object.  If  so,  the 
answer  is  easy  :  religion  was  degrading  :  but  heavier  degradations 
would  have  arisen  from  irreligion.  The  noblest  of  all  idolatrous 
peoples,  viz.  the  Romans,  have  left  deeply  scored  in  their  very 
use  of  their  word  ■religio,  their  testimony  to  the  degradation 
wrought  by  any  religion  that  Paganism  could  yield.  Rarely  in- 
deed is  this  word  employed,  by  a  Latin  autlior,  in  speaking  of  an 
individual,  without  more  or  less  of  sneer.  Reading  that  word, 
in  a  Latin  book,  we  all  try  it  and  ring  it,  as  a  petty  shopkeeper 
rings  a  half-crown,,  before  we  venture  to  receive  it  as  offered  in 
good  f  lith  and  loyalty.  Even  the  Greeks  are  nearly  in  the  same 
un:uoui,  when  they  wish  to  speak  of  religiosity  in  a  spirit  of 
serious  praise.  Some  circuitous  form,  commending  the  correct- 
ness of  a  man,  .Tfoi  ru  6^ia,  in  respect  of  divine  things,  becomes 
I'equisite;  for  all  the  direct  terms,  expressing  the  religious  tem- 
per, are  preoccupied  by  a  taint  of  scorn.  The  word  omoc,  means 
pious,  —  not  as  regards  the  gods,  but  as  regards  the  dead;  and 
even  ir-af^t;?,  though  not  used  sneeringly,  is  a  world  short  of  our 
word  'religious.'  This  condition  of  language  we  need  not  won- 
der at :  the  language  of  life  must  naturally  receive,  as  in  a 
mirror,  the  realities  of  life.  Difficult  it  is  to  maintain  a  just 
equipoise  in  any  moral  habits,  but  in  none  so  much  as  in  habits 
of  religious  demeanor  under  a  Pagan  [that  is,  a  degrading] 
religion.  To  be  a  coward,  is  base  :  to  be  a  sycophant,  is  base  : 
but  to  be  a  sycophant  in  the  service  of  cowardice,  is  the  perfection 
of  baseness :  and  yet  this  was  the  brief  analysis  of  a  desotee 
amongst  the  ancient  Romans.  Now,  considering  that  the  word 
religion  is  originally  Roman,  [probably  from  the  Etruscan,]  it 
seenis  probable  that  it  presented  the  idea  of  religion  under  some 
one  of  its  bad  aspects.  Coleridge  must  quite  have  forgotten  this 
Paganism  of  the  word,  when  he  suggested  as  a  plausible  idea, 
that  originally  it  had  presented  religion  under  the  aspect  of  a 
coercion  or  restraint.  Morality  having  been  viewed  as  the  prime 
restraint  or  obligation  I'esting  upon  man,  then  Coleridge  thought 
that  religion  might  have  been  viewed  as  a  religatio,  a  reiterated 
restraint,  or  secondary  obligation.  This  is  ingenious,  but  it  will 
not  do.  It  is  cracked  in  the  ring.  Perhaps  as  many  as  three 
objections  might  be  mustered  to  such  a  derivation  :  but  the  last  of 


NOTES.  49 

the  three  is  conclusive.  The  ancients  never  did  view  morality 
as  a  mode  of  obligation  :  I  affirm  this  peremptorily;  and  with  the 
more  emphasis,  because  there  are  great  consequences  suspended 
upon  that  question. 

Note  3.    Page  5. 

'  Four  : '  there  are  six,  in  one  sense,  of  religion  :  viz.  5thly, 
corresponding  moral  affections;  Gthli/,o,  suitable  life.  But  this 
applies  to  religion  as  subjectively  possessed  by  a  man,  not  to 
religion  as  objectively  contemplated. 

Note  4.    Page  5. 

'  Untranslatable.^  —  This  is  not  generally  perceived.  On  the 
contrary,  people  are  ready  to  say,  '  Why,  so  far  from  it,  the 
very  earliest  language  in  which  the  Gospels  appeared,  excepting 
only  St.  Matthew's,  was  the  Greek.'  Yes,  reader ;  but  what 
Greek?  Had  not  the  Greeks  been,  for  a  long  time,  colonizing 
Syria  under  princes  of  Grecian  blood,  —  had  not  the  Greek  lan- 
guage (as  a  lingua  Hellenistica)  become  steeped  in  Hebrew 
ideas,  —  no  door  of  communication  could  have  been  opened  be- 
tween the  new  world  of  Christian  feeling,  and  the  old  world  so 
deaf  to  its  music.  Here,  therefore,  we  may  observe  two  prepar- 
ations made  secretly  by  Providence  for  receiving  Christianity  and 
clearing  the  road  before  it;  first,  the  diffusion  of  the  Greek  lan- 
guage through  the  whole  civilized  world  (^i,  oi/.ovutvrf)  some  time 
before  Christ,  by  which  means  the  Evangelists  found  wings,  as 
it  were,  for  flying  abroad  through  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth ; 
secondly,  the  Hebraizing  of  this  language,  by  which  means  the 
Evangelists  found  a  new  material  made  plastic  and  obedient  to 
these  new  ideas,  which  they  had  to  build  with,  and  which  they 
had  to  build  upon. 

Note  5.  Page  6. 
*  In  Christianity.'  —  Once  for  all,  to  save  the  trouble  of  con- 
tinual repetitions,  understand  Judaism  to  be  commemorated 
jointly  with  Christianity;  the  dark  root  together  with  the  golden 
fruitage;  whenever  the  nature  of  the  case  does  not  presume  a 
contradistinction  of  the  one  to  the  other. 
4 


50  CHRISTIANITY. 


Note  6.    Page  12. 

In  Greek,  there  is  a  word  for  repentance,  but  not  until  it  had 
been  rebaptized  into  a  Christian  use.  Metanoia,  however,  is 
not  that  word  :  it  is  grossly  to  defeat  the  profound  meaning  of 
the  New  Testament,  if  John  the  Baptist  is  translated  as  though 
summoning  the  world  to  repentance  ;  it  was  not  that  to  which  he 
'  summoned  them. 

Note  7.    Page  21. 

'  JVot  being  a  Christian,  has  yet  become  saturated  with  Chris- 
tian ideas  : '  —  tliis  case  is  far  from  uncommon  ;  and  undoubt- 
edly, from  having  too  much  escaped  observation,  it  has  been  the 
cause  of  much  error.  Poets  I  could  mention,  if  it  were  not  invid- 
ious to  do  so,  who,  whilst  composing  in  a  spirit  of  burning  enmity 
to  the  Christian  faith,  yet  rested  for  the  very  sting  of  their 
pathos  upon  ideas  that  but  for  Christianity  could  never  have 
existed.  Translators  there  have  been,  English,  French,  Ger- 
man, of  Mahometan  books,  who  have  so  colored  the  whole  vein 
of  thinking  with  sentiments  peculiar  to  Christianity,  as  to  draw 
from  a  reflecting  reader  the  exclamation,  '  If  this  can  be  indeed 
the  product  of  Islamism,  wherefore  should  Christianity  exist?  ' 
If  thoughts  so  divine  can,  indeed,  belong  to  a  false  religion,  what 
more  could  we  gain  from  a  true  one  ? 

Note  8.     Page  27. 

•  Danger  not  measurable : '  —  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  all 
the  superior  gods  passed  through  an  infancy  (as  Jove,  &c.)  or 
even  an  adolescence,  (as  Bacchus,)  or  even  a  maturity,  (as  the 
majority  of  Olj'mpus  during  the  insurrection  of  the  Titans,)  sur- 
rounded by  perils  that  required  not  strength  only,  but  artifice, 
and  even  abject  self-concealment  to  evade. 

Note  9.     Page  28. 

'  Much,'  —  not  all :  for  part  was  due  to  the  obstinate  conceal- 
ment from  Jupiter,  by  Prometheus,  of  the  danger  which  threat- 
ened his  throne  in  a  coming  generation. 


I 


NOTES.  51 

Note  10.     Page  29. 

'  So  merely  and  obviously  human  :'  —  It  is  a  natural  thought, 
to  any  person  who  has  not  explored  these  recesses  of  human 
degradation,  that  surely  the  Pagans  must  have  had  it  in  their 
power  to  invest  their  gods  with  all  conceivable  perfections,  quite 
as  much  as  we  that  are  7wt  Pagans.  The  thing  wanting  to  the 
Pagans,  he  will  think,  Avas  the  right:  otlierwise  as  regarded 
the  power. 

Note  11.    Page  37. 

'  Encouraging  words  : '  and  ratlier  presumptuous  words,  if 
the  newspapers  reported  them  correctly  :  for  they  went  the 
length  of  promising,  that  he  separately,  as  King  of  the  French, 
would  coerce  Europe  into  peace.  But,  from  the  known  good 
sense  of  the  king,  it  is  more  probable  that  he  promised  his  nega- 
tive aid,  —  the  aid  of  not  personally  concurring  to  any  war  which 
might  otherwise  be  attractive  to  the  French  government. 

Note  12.    Page  41. 

'  We  British  .• '  —  It  may  be  thought  that,  in  the  prosecution 
of  Yerres,  the  people  of  Rome  acknowledged  something  of  the 
same  high  responsibility.  Not  at  all.  The  case  came  before 
Pvome,  not  as  a  case  of  injury  to  a  colonial  child,  whom  the  gen- 
eral mother  was  bound  to  protect  and  avenge  ;  but  as  an  appeal, 
by  way  of  special  petition,  from  Sicilian  clients.  It  was  no  grand 
political  movement,  but  simply  judicial.  Verres  was  an  ill-used 
man  and  the  victim  of  private  intrigues.  Or,  whatever  he 
might  be,  Rome  certainly  sate  upon  the  cause,  not  in  any  char- 
acter of  maternal  protectress,  taking  up  voluntarily  the  support 
of  the  weak,  but  as  a  sheriff  assessing  damages  in  a  case  forced 
upon  his  court  by  the  plaintiff. 

Note  13.    Page  46. 
At  Baraset,  if  I  remember  rightly. 


PROTESTANTISM.* 


[1847.] 

The  work  whose  substance  and  theme  are  thus 
briefly  abstracted  is,  at  this  moment,  making  a  noise 
in  the  world.  It  is  ascribed  by  report  to  two  bishops — 
not  jointly,  but  alternatively  —  in  the  sense  that,  if  one 
did  not  write  the  book,  the  other  did.  The  Bishops  of 
Oxford  and  St.  David's,  Wilberforce  and  Thirlwall,  are 
the  two  pointed  at  by  the  popular  finger;  and,  in  some 
quarters,  a  third  is  suggested,  viz.,  Stanley,  Bishop  of 
Norwich.  The  betting,  however,  is  altogether  in  favor 
of  Oxford.  So  runs  the  current  of  puhlic  gossip.  But 
the  public  is  a  bad  guesser,  '  stiff  in  opinion'  it  is,  and 
almost  '  always  in  the  wrong.'  Now  let  me  guess. 
When  I  had  read  for  ten  minutes,  I  offered  a  bet  of 
.seven  to  one  (no  takers)  that  the  author's  name  began 
with  H.  Not  out  of  any  love  for  that  amphibious 
letter ;  on  the  contrary,  being  myself  what  Professor 
Wilson  calls  a  hedonist,  or  philosophical  voluptuary, 
and  murmuring,  with  good  reason,  if  a  rose  leaf  lies 
doubled  below  me,  naturally  I  murmur  at  a  letter  that 
puts  one  to  the  expense  of  an  aspiration,  forcing  into 

*  A  Vindication  of  Protestant  Principles.  By  Pliileleutheros 
Anglicanus.    London  ;  Parker.     IS  17. 


54  PROTESTANTISM. 

the  lungs  an  extra  charge  of  raw  air  on  frosty  morn- 
ings. But  truth  is  truth,  in  spite  of  frosty  air.  And 
yet,  upon  further  reading,  doubts  gathered  upon  my 
mind.  The  H.  that  I  mean  is  an  Englishman  ;  now 
it  happens  that  here  and  there  a  word,  or  some  pecu- 
liarity in  using  a  word,  indicates,  in  this  author,  a 
Scotchman;  for  instance,  the  expletive  'just,'  which  so 
much  infests  Scotch  phraseology,  written  or  spoken,  at 
page  1  ;  elsewhere  the  word  '  short-comings,^  which, 
being  horridly  tabernacular,  and  such  that  no  gentle- 
man could  allow  himself  to  touch  it  without  gloves,  it 
is  to  be  wished  that  our  Scottish  brethren  would  resign, 
together  with  '  hackslidings^''  to  the  use  of  field  preach- 
ers. But  worse,  by  a  great  deal,  and  not  even  intelli- 
gible in  England,  is  the  word  thereafter,  used  as  an 
adverb  of  time,  i.  e.,  as  the  correlative  of  hereafter. 
Thereafter,  in  pure  vernacular  English,  bears  a  totally 
different  sense.  In  '  Paradise  Lost,'  for  instance,  hav- 
ing heard  the  character  of  a  particular  angel,  you  are 
told  that  he  spoke  thereafter,  i.  e.,  spoke  agreeably 
to  that  character.  '  How  a  score  of  sheep,  Master 
Shallow  ? '  The  answer  is,  '  Thereafter  as  they  be.' 
Again,  '  Thereafter  as  a  man  sows  shall  he  reap.' 
The  objections  are  overwhelming  to  the  Scottish  use  of 
the  word ;  first,  because  already  in  Scotland  it  is  a 
barbarism  transplanted  from  the  filthy  vocabulary  of 
attorneys,  locally  called  writers  ;  secondly,  because  in 
England  it  is  not  even  intelligible,  and,  what  is  worse 
still,  sure  to  be  rajs-intelligible.  And  yet,  after  all, 
these  exotic  forms  may  be  a  mere  blind.  The  writer 
is,  perhaps,  purposely  leading  us  astray  with  his  ^there- 
aflers,''  and  his  horrid  '  short-comings.'     Or,  because 


PROTESTANTISM.  55 

London  newspapers,  and  Acts  of  Parliament,  are  be- 
ginning to  be  more  and  more  polluted  with  these  bar- 
barisms, he  may  even  have  caught  them  unconsciously. 
And,  on  looking  again  at  one  case  of  '  thereafter,''  viz. 
at  page  79,  it  seems  impossible  to  determine  whether 
he  uses  it  in  the  classical  English  sense,  or  in  the  sense 
of  leguleian  barbarism. 

This  question  of  authorship,  meantime,  may  seem 
to  the  reader  of  little  moment.  Far  from  it !  The 
weightier  part  of  the  interest  depends  upon  that  very 
point.  If  the  author  really  is  a  bishop,  or  supposing  the 
public  rumor  so  far  correct  as  that  he  is  a  man  of  dis- 
tinction in  the  English  church,  then,  and  by  that  simple 
fact,  this  book,  or  this  pamphlet,  interesting  at  any  rate 
for  itself,  becomes  separately  interesting  through  its 
authorship,  so  as  to  be  the  most  remarkable  phenome- 
non of  the  day  ;  and  why  ?  Because  the  most  remark- 
able expression  of  a  movement,  accomplished  and 
proceeding  in  a  quarter  that,  if  any  on  this  earth, 
might  be  thought  sacred  from  change.  Oh,  fearful  are 
the  motions  of  time,  when  suddenly  lighted  up  to  a 
retrospect  of  thirty  years !  Pathetic  are  the  ruins  of 
time  in  its  slowest  advance!  Solemn  are  the  prospects, 
so  new  and  so  incredible,  which  time  unfolds  at  every 
turn  of  its  wheeling  flight !  Is  it  come  to  tliis  ?  Could 
any  man,  one  generation  back,  have  anticipated  that 
an  English  dignitary,  and  speaking  on  a  very  delicate 
religious  question,  should  deliberately  appeal  to  a 
writer  confessedly  infidel,  and  proud  of  being  an  infi- 
del, as  a  'triumphant'  settler  of  Christian  scruples? 
But  if  the  infidel  is  right,  a  point  which  I  do  not  here 
discuss  —  but  if  the  infidel  is  a  man  of  genius,  a  point 


56  PROTESTANTISM, 

which  I  do  not  deny — was  it  not  open  to  cite  him, 
even  though  the  citer  were  a  bishop?  Why,  yes  — 
uneasily  one  answers,  yes ;  but  still  the  case  records  a 
strange  alteration,  and  still  one  could  have  wished  to 
hear  such  a  doctrine,  which  ascribes  human  infirmity 
(nay,  human  criminality)  to  every  book  of  the  Bible, 
uttered  by  anybody  rather  than  by  a  father  of  the 
Church,  and  guaranteed  by  anybody  rather  than  by  an 
infidel,  in  triumph.  A  boy  may  fire  his  pistol  unno- 
ticed ;  but  a  sentinel,  mounting  guard  in  the  dark,  must 
remember  the  trepidation  that  will  follow  any  shot  from 
/itm,  and  the  certainty  that  it  will  cause  all  the  stations 
within  hearing  to  get  under  arms  immediately.  Yet 
why,  if  this  bold  opinion  does  come  from  a  prelate,  he 
being  but  one  man,  should  it  carry  so  alarming  a 
sound  ?  Is  the  whole  bench  of  bishops  bound  and 
compromised  by  the  audacity  of  any  one  amongst  its 
members  ?  Certainly  not.  But  yet  such  an  act, 
though  it  should  be  that  of  a  rash  precursor,  marks  the 
universal  change  of  position  ;  there  is  ever  some  sym- 
pathy between  the  van  and  the  rear  of  the  same  body 
at  the  same  time  ;  and  the  boldest  could  not  have  dared 
to  go  ahead  so  rashly,  if  the  rearmost  was  not  known 
to  be  pressing  forward  to  his  support,  far  more  closely 
than  thirty  years  ago  he  could  have  done.  There  have 
been,  it  is  true,  heterodox  professors  of  divinity  and 
free-thinking  bishops  before  now.  England  can  show 
a  considerable  list  of  such  people  —  even  Rome  has  a 
smaller  list.  Rome,  that  weeds  all  libraries,  and  is 
continually  burning  books,  in  effigy,  by  means  of  her 
vast  Index  Expurgatorius,^  which  index,  continually, 
she  is  enlarging  by  successive  supplements,  needs  also 


PROTESTANTISM.  57 

an  Index  Expurgatorius  for  the  catalogue  of  her  pre- 
lates. Weeds  there  are  in  the  very  flower-garden  and 
conservatory  of  the  church.  Fathers  of  the  church  are 
no  more  to  he  relied  on,  as  safe  authorities,  than  we 
rascally  lay  authors,  that  notoriously  will  say  anything. 
And  it  is  a  striking  proof  of  this  amongst  our  English 
bishops,  that  the  very  man  who,  in  the  last  generation, 
most  of  all  won  the  public  esteem  as  the  champion  of 
the  Bible  against  Tom  Paine,  was  privately  known 
amongst  us  connoisseurs  in  heresy  (that  are  always 
prying  into  ugly  secrets)  to  be  the  least  orthodox 
thinker,  one  or  other,  amongst  the  whole  brigade  of 
fifteen  thousand  contemporary  clerks  who  had  sub- 
scribed the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  Saving  your  pres- 
ence, reader,  his  lordship  was  no  better  than  a  bigoted 
Socinian,  which,  in  a  petty  diocese  that  he  never  vis- 
ited, and  amongst  South  Welshmen,  that  are  all  incor- 
rigible Methodists,  mattered  little,  but  would  have  been 
awkward  had  he  come  to  be  Archbishop  of  York  ;  and 
that  he  did  not^  turned  upon  the  accident  of  a  few 
weeks  too  soon,  by  which  the  Fates  cut  short  the  thread 
of  the  Whig  ministry  in  1807.  Certainly,  for  a  Romish 
or  an  English  bishop  to  be  a  Socinian  is  tm  peu  fort. 
But  I  contend  that  it  is  quite  possible  to  be  far  less 
heretical,  and  yet  dangerously  bold;  yes,  upon  the  free 
and  spacious  latitudes,  purposely  left  open  by  the  Eng- 
lish Thirty-nine  Articles  (ay,  or  by  any  Protestant 
Confession),  to  plant  novelties  not  less  startling  to  re- 
ligious ears  than  Socinianism  itself.  Besides  (which 
adds  to  the  shock),  the  dignitaiy  now  before  us, 
whether  bishop  or  no  bishop,  does  not  write  in  the 
tone   of  a   conscious   heretic  ;    or,   like   Archdeacon 


58  PROTESTANTISM. 

Blackburne-  of  old,  in  a  spirit  of  hostility  to  his  own 
fellow-churchmen  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  tone  of 
one  relying  upon  support  from  his  clerical  brethren,  he 
stands  forward  as  expositor  and  champion  of  views  now 
prevailing  amongst  the  elite  of  the  English  Church. 
So  construed,  the  book  is,  indeed,  a  most  extraordinary 
one,  and  exposes  a  history  that  almost  shocks  one  of 
the  strides  made  in  religious  speculation.  Opinions 
change  slowly  and  stealthily.  The  steps  of  the 
changes  are  generally  continuous  ;  but  sometimes  it 
happens  that  the  notice  of  such  steps,  the  publication 
of  such  changes,  is  not  continuous,  that  it  comes  upon 
us  per  saltum,  and,  consequently,  with  the  stunning 
effect  of  an  apparent  treachery.  Every  thoughtful 
man  raises  his  hands  with  an  involuntary  gesture  of 
awe  at  the  revolutions  of  so  revolutionary  an  age, 
when  thus  summoned  to  the  spectacle  of  an  English 
prelate  serving  a  piece  of  artillery  against  what  once 
were  fancied  to  be  main  outworks  of  religion,  and  at  a 
station  sometimes  considerably  in  advance  of  any 
occupied  by  Voltaire.-^ 

It  is  this  audacity  of  speculation,  I  apprehend,  this 
elalage  of  bold  results,  rather  than  any  success  in  their 
development,  which  has  fixed  the  public  attention. 
Development,  indeed,  applied  to  philosophic  problems, 
or  research  applied  to  questions  of  erudition,  was  hard- 
ly possible  within  so  small  a  compass  as  one  hundred 
and  seventeen  pages,  for  that  is  the  extent  of  the 
work,  except  as  regards  the  notes,  which  amount  to 
seventy-four  pages  more.  Such  brevity,  on  such  a 
subject,  is  unseasonable,  and  almost  culpable.  On 
such  a  subject  as  the  Philosophy  of  Protestantism  — 


PROTESTANTISM.  59 

'  satius  erat  silere,  quam  parcius  dicere.''  Better 
were  absolute  silence,  more  respectful  as  regards  the 
theme,  less  tantalizing  as  regards  the  reader,  than  a 
style  of  discussion  so  fragmentary  and  so  rapid. 

But,  before  we  go  farther,  what  are  we  to  call  this 
bold  man }  One  must  have  some  name  for  a  man 
that  one  is  reviewing;  and,  as  he  comes  abroad  incog- 
nito, it  is  difficult  to  see  what  name  could  have  any 
propriety.  Let  me  consider :  there  are  three  bishops 
in  the  field,  Mr.  H.,  and  the  Scotchman  —  that  makes 
five.  But  every  one  of  these,  you  say,  is  represented 
equally  by  the  name  in  tlie  title  —  Phileleutheros  An- 
glicanus.  True,  but  thafs  as  long  as  a  team  of  horses. 
If  it  had  but  Esquire  at  the  end,  it  would  measure 
against  a  Latin  Hendecasyllable  verse.  I'm  afraid 
that  we  must  come  at  last  to  Phil.  Vve  been  seeking 
to  avoid  it,  for  it's  painful  to  say  'Jack'  or  'Dick' 
either  to  or  o/an  ecclesiastical  great  gun.  But  if  such 
big  wigs  will  come  abroad  in  disguise,  and  witli  names 
as  long  as  Fielding's  Hononchrononthononthologus, 
they  must  submit  to  be  hustled  by  pickpockets  and 
critics,  and  to  have  their  names  docked  as  well  as  pro- 
fane authors. 

Phil.,  then,  be  it  —  that's  settled.  Now,  let  us  in- 
quire what  it  is  that  Phil,  has  been  saying,  to  cause 
such  a  sensation  amongst  the  Gnostics.  And,  to  begin 
at  the  beginning,  what  is  Phil.'s  capital  object  ?  Phil. 
shall  state  it  himself — these  arc  his  opening  words:  — 
'  In  the  following  pages  we  propose  to  vindicate  the 
fundamental  and  inherent  principles  of  Protestantism.' 
Good ;  but  what  are  the  fundamental  principles  of 
Protestantism  >    '  They  are,'  says  Phil.,  '  the  sole  suffi- 


60  PROTESTANTISM. 

ciency  of  Scripture,'*  the  right  of  private  judgment  in 
its  interpretation,  and  the  authority  of  individual  con- 
science in  matters  of  religion.'  Errors  of  logic  show 
themselves  more  often  in  a  man's  terminology,  and  his 
antithesis,  and  his  subdivisions,  than  anywhere  else. 
Phil,  goes  on  to  make  this  distinction,  which  brings 
out  his  imperfect  conception.  '  We,'  says  he  (and,  by 
the  way,  if  Phil,  is  we^  then  it  must  be  my  duty  to 
call  him  they), '  we  do  not  propose  to  defend  the  varie- 
ties of  doctrine  held  by  the  different  communities  of 
Protestants.'  Why,  no ;  that  would  be  a  sad  task  for 
the  most  skilful  of  funambulists  or  theological  tum- 
blers, seeing  that  many  of  these  varieties  stand  related 
to  each  other  as  categorical  affirmative  and  categorical 
negative  :  it's  heavy  work  to  make  yes  and  no  pull 
together  in  the  same  proposition.  But  this,  fortunately 
for  himself,  Phil,  declines.  You  are  to  understand 
that  he  will  not  undertake  the  defence  of  Protestantism 
in  its  doctrines,  but  only  in  its  princijjles.  That  won't 
do ;  that  antithesis  is  as  hollow  as  a  drum  ;  and,  if  the 
objection  were  verbal  only,  I  would  not  make  it.  But 
the  contradistinction  fails  to  convey  the  real  meaning. 
It  is  not  that  he  has  falsely  expressed  his  meaning,  but 
that  he  has  falsely  developed  that  meaning  to  his  own 
consciousness.  Not  the  word  only  is  wrong ;  but  the 
wrong  word  is  put  forward  for  the  sake  of  hiding  the 
imperfect  idea.  What  he  calls  principles  might  almost 
as  well  be  called  doctrines ;  and  what  he  calls  doc- 
trijies  as  well  be  called  principles.  Out  of  these 
terms,  apart  from  the  rectifications  suggested  by  the 
context,  no  man  could  collect  his  drift,  which  is  simply 
this.     Protestantism,  we  must  recollect,  is  not  an  abso- 


PROTESTANTISM.  61 

lute  and  self-dependent  idea ;  it  stands  in  relation  to 
something  antecedent,  against  which  it  protests,  viz., 
Papal  Rome.  And  under  what  phasis  does  it  protest 
against  Rome  ?  Not  against  the  Christianity  of  Rome, 
because  every  Protestant  Church,  though  disapproving 
a  great  deal  of  that,  disaproves  also  a  great  deal  in  its 
own  sister  churches  of  the  protesting  household  ;  and 
because  every  Protestant  Church  holds  a  great  deal  of 
Christian  truth,  in  common  with  Rome.  But  what  fur- 
nishes the  matter  of  protest  is  —  the  deduction  of  the 
title  upon  which  Rome  plants  the  right  to  be  church  at 
all.  This  deduction  is  so  managed  by  Rome  as  to 
make  herself,  not  merely  a  true  church  (which  many 
Protestants  grant),  but  the  exclusive  church.  Now, 
what  Phil,  in  effect  undertakes  to  defend  is  not  prin- 
ciples by  preference  to  doctrines  (for  they  are  pretty 
nearly  the  same  thing),  but  the  question  of  title  to 
teach  at  all,  in  preference  to  the  question  of  what  is 
the  thing  taught.  There  is  the  distinction,  as  I  appre- 
hend it.  All  these  terfns  —  'principle,'  'doctrine,' 
'system,'  'theory,'  'hypothesis'  —  are  used  nearly 
always  most  licentiously,  and  as  arbitrarily  as  a  New- 
market jockey  selects  the  colors  for  his  riding-dress. 
It  is  true  that  one  shadow  of  justification  oflers  itself 
for  Phil.'s  distinction.  All  principles  are  doctrines, 
but  all  doctrines  are  not  principles ;  which,  then,  in 
particular  ?  Why,  those  properly  arc  princi|)les  which 
contain  the  j;rmciyn'«,  the  beginnings,  or  starting-points 
of  evolution,  out  of  which  any  system  of  truth  is 
evolved.  Now,  it  may  seem  that  the  very  starting- 
point  of  our  Protestant  pretensions  is,  first  of  all,  to 
argue  our  title  or  right  to  be  a  church  sui  juris ;  ap- 


62  PROTESTANTISM. 

parently  we  must  begin  by  making  good  our  locus 
standi,  before  we  can  be  heard  upon  our  doctrines. 
And  upon  this  mode  of  approach,  the  pleadings  about 
the  title,  or  right  to  teach  at  all,  taking  precedency  of 
the  pleadings  about  the  particular  things  taught,  would 
be  the  principia,  or  beginning  of  the  whole  process, 
and  so  far  would  be  entitled  by  preference  to  the  name 
of  principles.  But  such  a  mode  of  approach  is  merely 
an  accident,  and  contingent  upon  our  being  engaged 
in  a  polemical  discussion  of  Protestantism  in  relation 
to  Popery.  That,  however,  is  a  pure  matter  of  choice  ; 
Protestantism  may  be  discussed,  as  though  Rome  were 
not,  in  relation  to  its  own  absolute  merits ;  and  this 
treatment  is  the  logical  treatment,  applying  itself  to 
what  is  permanent  in  the  nature  of  the  object ;  whereas 
the  other  treatment  applies  itself  to  what  is  casual  and 
vanishing  in  the  history  (or  the  origin)  of  Protestantism. 
For,  after  all,  it  would  be  no  great  triumph  to  Protest- 
antism that  she  should  prove  her  birthright  to  revolve 
as  a  primary  planet  in  the  s6lar  system;  that  she  had 
the  same  original  right  as  Rome  to  wheel  about  the 
great  central  orb,  undegraded  to  the  rank  of  satellite 
or  secondary  projection  —  if,  in  the  meantime,  tele- 
scopes should  reveal  the  fact  that  she  was  pretty  nearly 
a  sandy  desert.  WJiat  a  church  teaches  is  true  or  not 
true,  without  reference  to  her  independent  right  of 
teaching;  and  eventually,  when  the  irritations  of  earth- 
ly feuds  and  political  schisms  shall  be  soothed  by  time, 
the  philosophy  of  this  whole  question  will  take  an 
inverse  order.  The  credentials  of  a  church  will  not 
be  put  in  first,  and  the  quality  of  her  doctrine  discussed 
as  a  secondary  question.     On  the  contrary,  her  ere- 


PEOTESTANTISM.  63 

dentials  will  be  sought  in  her  doctrine.  The  Protest- 
ing Church  will  say,  I  have  the  right  to  stand  separate, 
because  I  stand  ;  and  from  my  holy  teaching  I  deduce 
my  title  to  teach.  Jus  est  ihi  summnm  docendi^uhi  est 
fons  purissimus  doctrincc.  That  inversion  of  the  Pro- 
testant plea  with  Rome  is  even  now  valid  with  many; 
and,  when  it  becomes  universally  current,  then  the 
principles,  or  great  beginnings  of  the  controversy,  will 
be  transplanted  from  the  locus,  or  centre,  where  Phil. 
places  them,  to  the  very  locus  which  he  neglects. 

There  is  another  expression  of  Fhil.\':  (I  am  afraid 
Phil,  is  getting  angry  by  this  time)  to  which  I  object. 
He  describes  the  doctrines  held  by  all  the  separate 
Protestant  churches  as  doctrines  of  Protestantism.  I 
would  not  delay  either  Phil,  or  myself  for  the  sake  of 
a  trifle  ;  but  an  impossibility  is  not  a  trifle.  If  from 
orthodox  Turkey  you  pass  to  heretic  Persia,  if  from 
the  rigor  of  the  Sonnees  to  the  laxity  of  the  Sheeahs, 
you  could  not,  in  explaining  those  schisms,  go  on  to 
say,  '  And  these  are  the  doctrines  of  Islamism  ; '  for 
they  destroy  each  other.  Both  arc  supported  by 
earthly  powers ;  but  one  only  could  be  supported  by 
central  Islamism.  So  of  Calvinism  and  Arminianism ; 
you  cannot  call  them  doctrines  of  Protestantism,  as  if 
growing  out  of  some  reconciling  Protestant  principles; 
one  of  the  two,  though  not  manifested  to  human  eyes 
in  its  falsehood,  must  secretly  be  false  ;  and  a  false- 
hood cannot  be  a  doctrine  of  Protestantism.  It  is  more 
accurate  to  say  that  the  separate  creeds  of  Turkey  and 
Persia  are  leilhin  Mahommedanism  ;  such,  viz.,  as  that 
neither  excludes  a  man  from  the  name  of  Mussulman  ; 
and,  again,  that  Calvinism  and  Arminianism  arc  doc- 


64  PROTESTANTISM. 

trines  within  the  Protestant  Church  —  as  a  church  of 
general  toleration  for  all  religious  doctrines  not  rfe- 
monstrably  hostile  to  any  cardinal  truth  of  Christian- 
ity- 

Phil.,  then,  we  all  understand,  is  not  going  to  tra- 
verse the  vast  field  of  Protestant  opinions  as  they  are 
distributed  through  our  many  sects ;  that  would  be 
endless ;  and  he  illustrates  the  mazy  character  of  the 
wilderness  over  which  these  sects  are  wandering, 

'  ubi  passim 


Palantes  error  recto  dc  tramite  pellit,' 

by  the  four  cases  of — 1,  the  Calvinist ;  2,  the  New- 
manite ;  3,  the  Romanist;^  4,  the  Evangelical  enthu- 
siast—  as  holding  systems  of  doctrine,  'no  one  of 
which  is  capable  of  recommending  itself  to  the  favor- 
able opinion  of  an  impartial  judge.'  Impartial !  but 
what  Christian  can  be  impartial  ?  To  be  free  from  all 
bias,  and  to  begin  his  review  of  sects  in  that  temper, 
he  must  begin  by  being  an  infidel.  Vainly  a  man 
endeavors  to  reserve  in  a  state  of  neutrality  any  pre- 
conceptions that  he  may  have  formed  for  himself,  or 
prepossessions  that  he  may  have  inherited  from  '  mam- 
ma ; '  he  cannot  do  it  any  more  than  he  can  dismiss 
his  own  shadow.  And  it  is  strange  to  contemplate  the 
weakness  of  strong  minds  in  fancying  that  they  can. 
Calvin,  whilst  amiably  engaged  in  hunting  Servetus  to 
death,  and  writing  daily  letters  to  his  friends,  in  which 
he  expresses  his  hope  that  the  executive  power  would 
not  think  of  burning  the  poor  man,  since  really  justice 
would  be  quite  satisfied  by  cutting  his  head  off,  meets 
with   some  correspondents  who  conceive   (idiots  that 


PROTESTANTISM.  65 

they  were  !)  even  that  Ihtle  amputation  not  indispensa- 
ble. But  Calvin  soon  settles  their  scruples.  You 
don't  perceive,  he  tells  them,  what  this  man  has  been 
about.  When  a  writer  attacks  Popery,  it's  very  wrong 
in  the  Papists  to  cut  his  head  off;  and  why  }  Because 
he  has  only  been  attacking  error.  But  here  lies  the 
difference  in  this  case ;  Servetus  had  been  attacking 
the  TRUTH.  Do  you  see  the  distinction,  my  friends  I 
Consider  it,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  be  sensible  that 
this  quite  alters  the  case.  It  is  shocking,  it  is  perfectly 
ridiculous,  that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  should  touch  a 
hair  of  any  man's  head  for  contradicting  Mm ;  and 
why  ?  Because,  do  you  see }  he  is  wrong.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  evidently  agreeable  to  philosophy, 
that  1,  John  Calvin,  should  shave  off  the  hair,  and, 
indeed,  the  head  itself  (as  I  heartily  hope^  will  be 
done  in  this  present  case)  of  any  man  presumptuous 
enough  to  contradict  me ;  but  then,  why  ?  For  a  rea- 
son that  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world,  and 
which,  one  would  think,  idiocy  itself  could  not  over- 
look, viz.,  that  I,  John  Calvin,  am  right  —  right, 
through  three  degrees  of  comparison  —  right,  righter, 
or  more  right,  rightest,  or  most  right.  Calvin  fancied 
that  he  could  demonstrate  his  own  impartiality. 

The  self-sufficingness  of  the  Bible,  and  the  right  of 
private  judgment  —  here,  then,  are  the  two  great  char- 
ters in  which  Protestantism  commences  ;  these  are  the 
bulwarks  behind  which  it  intrenches  itself  against 
Rome.  And  it  is  remarkable  that  these  two  great 
preliminary  laws,  which  soon  diverge  into  fields  so 
different,  at  the  first  are  virtually  one  and  the  same 
law.  The  refusal  of  an  oracle  alien  to  the  Bible, 
5 


66  PROTESTANTISM. 

extrinsic  to  the  Bible,  and  claiming  the  sole  interpre- 
tation of  the  Bible  ;  the    refusal  of  an  oracle   that  re- 
duced the  Bible  to  a  hollow  masque,  underneath  which 
fraudulently  introducing  itself  any  earthly  voice  could 
mimic   a  heavenly  voice,  was  in  effect  to  refuse  the 
coercion  of  this  false  oracle  over  each  man's  consci- 
entious judgment ;  to  make   the  Bible  independent  of 
the  Pope,  was  to  make  man  independent  of  all  relig- 
ious controllers.     The    self-siifficingness  of  Scripture, 
its  independency  of  any  external  interpreter,  passed  in 
one  moment  into  the  other  great  Protestant  doctrine  of 
Toleration.     It  was  but  the  same  triumphal  monument 
under  a  new  angle  of  sight,  the  golden  and  silver  faces 
of    the    same   heraldic   shield.     The   very   same   act 
which  denies  the  right  of  interpretation  to  a  myste- 
rious Papal  pha3nix,  renewed  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration, having  the  antiquity  and  the  incomprehensible 
omniscience  of  the  Simorg  in  Southey,  transferred  this 
right  of  mere  necessity  to  the  individuals  of  the  whole 
human    race.      For   where    else    could    it  have    been 
lodged  ?     Any  attempt  in  any  other  direction  was  but 
to  restore  the   Papal  power  in  a  new  impersonation. 
Every  man,  therefore,  suddenly  obtained  the  right  of 
interpreting  the  Bible  for  himself.    But  the  word  '  right ' 
obtained  a  new  sense.    Every  man  has  the  right,  under 
the  Queen's  Bench,  of  publishing  an  unlimited  number 
of   metaphysical    systems ;    and,   under   favor  of  the 
same  indulgent  Bench,  we  all  enjoy  the  unlimited  right 
of  laughing  at  him.     But  not  the  whole  race  of  man 
has  a  right  to  coerce,  in  the  exercise  of  his  intellectual 
rights,  the  humblest  of  individuals.    The  rights  of  men 
are  thus  unspeakably  elevated ;  for,  being  now  freed 


PROTESTANTISM.  67 

from  all  anxiety,  being  sacred  as  merely  legal  rights, 
they  suddenly  rise  into  a  new  mode  of  responsibility 
as  intellectual  rights.  As  a  Protestant,  every  mature 
man  has  the  same  dignified  right  over  his  own  opinions 
and  profession  of  faith  that  he  has  over  his  own  hearth. 
But  his  hearth  can  rarely  be  abused ;  whereas  his  re- 
ligious system,  being  a  vast  kingdom,  opening  by  im- 
measurable gates  upon  worlds  of  light  and  worlds  of 
darkness,  now  brings  him  within  a  new  amenability  — 
called  upon  to  answer  new  impeachments,  and  to  seek 
for  new  assistances.  Formerly  another  was  answer- 
able for  his  belief ;  if  that  were  wrong,  it  was  no  fault 
of  his.  Now  he  has  new  rights,  but  these  have  bur- 
thened  him  with  new  obligations.  Now  he  is  crowned 
with  the  glory  and  the  palms  of  an  intellectual  crea- 
ture, but  he  is  alarmed  by  the  certainty  of  correspond- 
ing struggles.  Protestantism  it  is  that  has  created  hirn 
into  this  child  and  heir  of  liberty  ;  Protestantism  it  is 
that  has  invested  him  with  these  unbounded  privileges 
of  private  judgment,  giving  him  in  one  moment  the 
sublime  powers  of  a  Pope  within  his  own  conscience  ; 
but  Protestantism  it  is  that  has  introduced  him  to  the 
most  dreadful  of  responsibilities. 

I  repeat  that  the  twin  maxims,  the  columns  of  Her- 
cules through  which  Protestantism  entered  the  great 
sea  of  humaij  activities,  were  originally  but  two  aspects 
of  one  law  :  to  deny  the  Papal  control  over  men's  con- 
science being  to  affirm  man's  self-control,  was,  there- 
fore, to  affirm  man's  universal  right  to  toleration,  which 
again  implied  a  corresponding  duty  of  toleration.  Un- 
der this  bi-fronted  law,  generated  by  Protestantism,  but 
in  its  turn  regulating  Protestantisn>,  Phil,  undertakes 


68  PROTESTANTISM. 

to  develope  all  the  principles  that  belong  to  a  Protest- 
ant church.  The  seasonableness  of  such  an  investiga- 
tion—  its  critical  application  to  an  evil  now  spreading 
like  a  fever  through  Europe  —  he  perceives  fully;  and 
in  the  following  terms  he  expresses  this  perception  :  — 

'  That  we  stand  on  the  brink  of  a  great  theological  crisis,  that 
the  problem  must  soon  be  solved,  how  far  orthodox  Christianity  is 
possible  for  those  who  are  not  behind  their  age  in  scholarship 
and  science  ;  this  is  a  solemn  fact,  which  may  be  ignored  by  the 
partisans  of  short-sighted  bigotry,  but  which  is  felt  by  all,  and 
confessed  by  most  of  those  who  are  capable  of  appreciating  its 
reality  and  importance.  The  deep  Sibylline  vaticinations  of 
Coleridge's  philosophical  mind,  the  practical  working  of  Arnold's 
religious  sentimentalism,  and  the  open  acknowledgment  of  many 
divines  who  are  living  examples  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  have 
all,  in  different  ways,  foretold  the  advent  of  a  Church  of  the 
Future.' 

This  is  from  the  preface,  p.  ix.,  where  the  phrase» 
Church  of  the  Future^  points  to  the  Prussian  minister's 
(Bunsen's)  Kirche  der  Zukunft ;  but  in  the  body  of  the 
work,  and  not  far  from  its  close,  (p.  114,)  he  recurs  to 
this  crisis,  and  more  circumstantially. 

Phil,  embarrasses  himself  and  his  readers  in  this 
development  of  Protestant  principles.  His  own  view  of 
the  task  before  him  requires  that  he  should  separate 
himself  from  the  consideration  of  any  particular  church, 
and  lay  aside  all  partisanship  —  plausible  or  not  plau- 
sible. It  is  his  own  overture  that  warrants  us  in  ex- 
pecting this.  And  yet,  before  we  have  travelled  three 
measured  inches,  he  is  found  entangling  himself  with 
Church  of  Englandism.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood, 
as  though,  borrowing  a  Bentham  word,  I  were  there- 
fore a  Jerry  Benthamite  :  I,  that  may  describe  myself 


PROTESTANTISM.  69 

generally  as  Philo-Phil.,  am  not  less  a  son  of  the 
'  Reformed  Anglican  Church  '  than  Phil.  Conse- 
quently, it  is  not  likely  that,  in  any  vindication  of  that 
church,  simply  as  such,  and  separately  for  itself,  I 
should  be  the  man  to  find  grounds  of  exception.  Lov- 
ing most  of  what  Phil,  loves,  loving  Phil,  himself,  and 
hating  (I  grieve  to  say),  with  a  theological  hatred, 
whatever  Phil,  hates,  why  should  1  demur  at  this  par- 
ticular point  to  a  course  of  argument  that  travels  in  the 
line  of  my  own  partialities  ?  And  yet  I  do  demur. 
Having  been  promised  a  philosophic  defence  of  the 
principles  concerned  in  the  great  European  schism  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  suddenly  we  find  ourselves  col- 
lapsing from  that  altitude  of  speculation  into  a  defence 
of  one  individual  church.  Nobody  would  complain  of 
Phil.,  if,  after  having  deduced  philosophically  the 
principles  upon  which  all  Protestant  separation  from 
Rome  should  revolve,  he  had  gone  forward  to  show, 
that  in  some  one  of  the  Protestant  churches,  more  than 
in  others,  these  principles  had  been  asserted  with  pecu- 
liar strength,  or  carried  through  with  special  consist- 
ency, or  associated  pre-eminently  with  the  other  graces 
of  a  Christian  church,  such  as  a  ritual  more  impressive 
to  the  heart  of  man,  or  a  polity  more  symmetrical  with 
the  structure  of  English  society.  Once  having  un- 
folded from  philosophic  grounds  the  primary  conditions 
of  a  pure  scriptural  church,  Phil,  might  then,  without 
blame,  have  turned  sharp  round  upon  us,  saying,  such 
being  the  conditions  under  which  the  great  idea  of  a 
true  Christian  church  must  be  constructed ,  I  now  go  on 
to  show  that  the  Church  of  England  has  conformed  to 
those  conditions  more  faithfully  than  any  other.     But 


70  PROTESTANTISM. 

to  entangle  the  pure  outlines  of  the  idealizing  mind 
with  the  practical  forms  of  any  militant  church,  embar- 
rassed (as  we  know  all  churches  to  have  been)  by  pre- 
occupations of  judgment,  derived  from  feuds  too  local 
and  interests  too  political,  moving  too  (as  we  know  all 
churches  to  have  moved)  in  a  spirit  of  compromise,  oc- 
casionally from  mere  necesshies  of  position  ;  this  is  in 
the  result  to  injure  the  object  of  the  writer  doubly  : 
first,  as  leaving  an  impression  of  partisanship  the  reader 
is  mistrustful  from  the  first,  as  against  a  judge  that,  in 
reality,  is  an  advocate  ;  second,  without  reference  to 
the  effect  upon  the  reader,  directly  to  Phil,  it  is  inju- 
rious, by  fettering  the  freedom  of  his  speculations,  or, 
if  leaving  their  freedom  undisturbed,  by  narrov/ing 
their  compass. 

And,  if  Phil.,  as  to  the  general  movement  of  his 
Protestant  pleadings,  modulates  too  little  in  the  trans- 
cendental key,  sometimes  he  does  so  too  much.  For 
instance,  at  p.  69,  sec.  35,  we  find  ]iim  half  calling 
upon  Protestantism  to  account  for  her  belief  in  God ; 
how  then  ?  Is  this  belief  special  to  Protestants  ?  Are 
Roman  Catholics,  are  those  of  the  Greek,  the  Arme- 
nian, and  other  Christian  churches,  atheistically  given  ? 
We  used  to  be  told  that  there  is  no  royal  road  to  geom- 
etry. I  don't  know  whether  there  is  or  not;  but  I  am 
sure  there  is  no  Protestant  by-road,  no  Reformation 
short-cut,  to  the  demonstration  of  Deity.  It  is  true  that 
Phil,  exonerates  his  philosophic  scholar,  when  throwing 
himself  in  Protestant  freedom  upon  pure  intellectual 
aids,  from  the  vain  labor  of  such  an  effort.  He  con- 
signs him,  however  philosophic,  to  the  evidence  of 
'  inevitable    assumptions,    upon    axiomatic   postulates, 


PROTESTANTISM.  71 

which  the  rcflecthig  miiul  is  compelled  to  accept,  and 
which  no  more  admit  of  doubt  and  cavil  than  of  estab- 
lishment by  formal  proof.'  I  am  not  sure  whether  I 
understand  PJiil.  in  this  section.  Apparently  he  is 
glancing  at  Kant.  Kant  was  the  first  person,  and  per- 
haps the  last,  that  ever  undertook  formally  to  demon- 
strate the  indemonstrability  of  God.  He  showed  that 
the  three  great  arguments  for  the  existence  of  the  Deity 
were  virtually  one,  inasmuch  as  the  two  weaker  bor- 
rowed their  value  and  vis  apodeictica  from  the  more 
rigorous  metaphysical  argument.  The  physico-theo- 
logical  argument  he  forced  to  back,  as  it  were,  into  the 
cosmological,  and  that  into  the  ontological.  After  this 
reluctant  regressus  of  the  three  into  one,  shutting  up 
like  a  spying-glass,  which  (with  the  iron  hand  of  Her- 
cules forcing  Cerberus  up  to  daylight)  the  stern  man  of 
Kosnigsberg  resolutely  dragged  to  the  front  of  the 
arena,  nothing  remained,  now  that  he  had  this  pet 
scholastic  argument  driven  up  into  a  corner,  than  to 
break  its  neck  —  which  he  did.  Kant  took  the  conceit 
out  of  all  the  three  arguments ;  but,  if  this  is  what  PhiJ. 
alludes  to,  he  should  have  added,  that  these  three,  after 
all,  were  only  the  arguments  of  speculating  or  theoretic 
reason.  To  this  faculty  Kant  peremptorily  denied  the 
power  of  demonstrating  the  Deity  ;  but  then  that  same 
apodeixis,  which  he  had  thus  inexorably  torn  from  rea- 
son under  one  manifestation,  Kant  himself  restored  to 
the  reason  in  another  (the  praldische  vernunft.)  God 
he  asserts  to  be  a.  postulate  of  the  human  reason,  as 
speaking  through  the  conscience  and  will,  not  proved 
ostensively,  but  indirectly  proved  as  being  wanted  in- 


72  PROTESTANTISM. 

dispensably,  and  presupposed  in  other  necessities  of  our 
human  nature.  This,  probably,  is  what  Phil,  means 
by  his  short-hand  expression  of  '  axiomatic  postulates.' 
But  then  it  should  not  have  been  said  that  the  case  does 
not  '  admit  of  formal  proof,'  since  the  proof  is  as  '  for- 
mal' and  rigorous  by  this  new  method  of  Kant  as  by 
the  old  obsolete  methods  of  Sam.  Clarke  and  the 
schoolmen.'^ 

But  it  is  not  the  too  high  or  the  too  low  —  the  two 
much  or  the  too  little  —  of  what  one  might  call  by 
analogy  the  transcendental  course,  which  I  charge  upon 
Phil.  It  is,  that  he  is  too  desultory  —  too  eclectic. 
And  the  secret  purpose,  which  seems  to  me  predomi- 
nant throughout  his  work,  is,  not  so  much  the  defence 
of  Protestantism,  or  even  of  the  Anglican  Church,  as  a 
report  of  the  latest  novelties  that  have  found  a  roosting- 
place  in  the  English  Church,  amongst  the  most  tem- 
perate of  those  churchmen  who  keep  pace  with  modern 
philosophy  ;  in  short,  it  is  a  selection  from  the  classical 
doctrines  of  religion,  exhibited  under  their  newest  re- 
vision ;  or,  generally,  it  is  an  attempt  to  show,  fi'om 
what  is  going  on  amongst  the  most  moving  orders  in  the 
English  Church,  how  far  it  is  possible  that  strict  ortho- 
doxy should  bend,  on  the  one  side,  to  new  impulses, 
derived  from  an  advancing  philosophy,  and  yet,  on  the 
other  side,  should  reconcile  itself,  both  verbally  and  in 
spirit,  with  ancient  standards.  But  if  Phil,  is  eclectic, 
then  I  will  be  eclectic  ;  if  Phil,  has  a  right  to  be  de- 
sultory, then  I  have  a  right,  Phil,  is  my  leader.  I 
can't,  in  reason,  be  expected  to  be  better  than  he  is. 
If  I'm  wrong,  Phil,  ought  to  set  me  a  better  example. 


PROTESTANTISM.  73 

And  here,  before  this  honorable  audience  of  the  public, 
I  charge  all  my  errors  (whatever  they  may  be,  past  or 
coming)  upon  Phil.''s  misconduct. 

Having  thus  established  my  patent  of  vagrancy,  and 
my  license  for  picking  and  choosing,  I  choose  out  these 
three  articles  to  toy  with  :  —  first,  Bibliolatry;  second, 
Development  applied  to  the  Bible  and  Christianity  ; 
third.  Philology,  as  the  particular  resource  against  false 
philosophy,  relied  on  by  Phil. 

Bibliolatry.  —  We  Protestants  charge  upon  the  Pon- 
teficii,  as  the  more  learned  of  our  fathers  always  called 
the  Roman  Catholics,  Mariclatry ;  they  pay  undue 
honors,  say  we,  to  the  Virgin.  They  in  return  charge 
upon  us,  Bibliolatry,  or  a  superstitious  allegiance — an 
idolatrous  homage  —  to  the  words,  syllables,  and  punc- 
tuation of  the  Bible.  They,  according  to  lis,  deify  a 
woman  ;  and  we,  according  to  them,  deify  an  arrange- 
ment of  printer's  types.  As  to  their  error,  we  need  not 
mind  that :  let  us  attend  to  our  own.  And  to  this  ex- 
tent it  is  evident  at  a  glance  that  Bibliolatrists  jnust  be 
wrong,  viz.,  because,  as  a  pun  vanishes  on  being  trans- 
lated into  another  language,  even  so  would,  and  must 
melt  away,  like  ice  in  a  hot-house,  a  large  majority  of 
those  conceits  \v4iich  every  Christian  nation  is  apt  to 
ground  upon  the  verbal  text  of  the  Scriptures  in  its  own 
separate  vernacular  version.  But  onco  aware  that 
much  of  their  Bibliolatry  depends  upon  ignorance  of 
Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  often  upon  peculiarity  of  idiom 
or  structures  in  their  mother  dialect,  cautious  people 
begin  to  suspect  the  whole.  Here  arises  a  very  inter- 
esting, startling,  and  perplexing  situation  for  all  who 
venerate  the  Bible ;  one  which  must  always  have  ex- 


74 


PROTESTANTISM. 


isted  for  prying,  inquisitive  people,  but  which  has  been 
incalculably  sharpened  for  the  apprehension  of  these 
days  by  the  extraordinary  advances  made  and  making 
in  Oriental  and  Greek  philology.  It  is  a  situation  of 
public  scandal  even  to  the  deep  reverencers  of  the 
Bible  ;  but  a  situation  of  much  more  than  scandal;  of 
real  grief,  to  the  profound  and  sincere  amongst  religious 
people.  On  the  one  hand,  viewing  the  Bible  as  the 
word  of  God,  and  not  merely  so  in  the  sense  of  its  con- 
taining most  salutary  counsels,  but,  in  the  highest  sense, 
of  its  containing  a  revelation  of  the  most  awful  secrets, 
they  cannot  for  a  moment  listen  to  the  pretence  that 
the  Bible  has  benefited  by  God's  inspiration  only  as 
other  good  books  may  be  said  to  have  done.  They  are 
confident  that,  in  a  much  higher  sense,  and  in  a  sense 
incommunicable  to  other  books,  it  is  inspired.  Yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  they  will  not  tell  lies,  or  countenance 
lies,  even  in  what  seems  the  service  of  religion,  they 
cannot  hide  from  themselves  that  the  materials  of  this 
imperishable  book  are  perishable,  frail,  liable  to  crum- 
ble, and  actually  have  crumbled  to  some  extent,  in 
various  instances.  There  is,  therefore,  lying  broadly 
befoi'e  us,  something  like  what  Kant  called  an  antinomy 
—  a  case  where  two  laws  equally  binding  on  the  mind 
are,  or  seem  to  be,  in  collision.  Such  cases  occur  in 
morals  —  cases  which  are  carried  out  of  the  general 
rule,  and  the  jurisdiction  of  that  rule,  by  peculiar  de- 
flexions ;  and  from  the  word  case  we  derive  the  word 
casuistry,  as  a  general  science  dealing  with  such  anom- 
alous cases.  There  is  a  casuistry,  also,  for  the  specu- 
lative understanding,  as  well  as  for  the  moral  (which  is 
the  practical)  understanding.     And  this  question,  as  to 


Jl 


PROTESTANTISM.  75 

the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  with  its  apparent  conflict  of 
forces,  repelling  it  and  yet  atfirming  it,  is  one  of  its 
most  perplexing  and  most  momentous  problems. 

My  own  solution  of  the  problem  would  reconcile  all 
that  is  urged  against  an  inspiration  with  all  that  the  in- 
ternal necessity  of  the  case  would  plead  in  behalf  of  an 
inspiration.  So  would  Phil.''s.  His  distinction,  like 
mine,  would  substantially  come  down  to  this  —  that  the 
grandeur  and  extent  of  religious  truth  is  not  of  a  nature 
to  be  affected  by  verbal  changes  such  as  can  be  made 
by  time,  or  accident,  or  without  treacherous  design.  It 
is  like  lightning,  which  could  not  be  mutilated,  or  trun- 
cated, or  polluted.  But  it  may  be  well  to  rehearse  a 
little  more  in  detail,  both  PhiVs  view  and  my  own. 
Let  my  principal  go  first ;  make  way,  I  desire,  for  my 
leader  :  let  Phil,  have  precedency,  as,  in  all  reason,  it 
is  ray  duty  to  see  that  he  has. 

Whilst  rejecting  altogether  any  inspiration  as  attach- 
ing to  the  separate  words  and  phrases  of  the  Scriptures, 
Phil,  insists  (sect.  25,  p.  49)  upon  such  an  inspiration 
as  attaching  to  the  spiritual  truths  and  doctrines  deliv- 
ered in  these  Scriptures.  And  he  places  this  theory  in 
a  striking  light,  equally  for  what  it  affirms  and  for  what 
it  denies,  by  these  two  arguments — first  (in  affirmation 
of  the  real  spiritual  inspiration),  that  a  series  of  more 
than  thirty  writers,  speaking  in  succession  along  a  vast 
line  of  time,  and  absolutely  without  means  of  concert, 
yet  all  combine  unconsciously  to  one  end  —  lock  like 
parts  of  a  great  machine  into  one  system  —  conspire  to 
the  unity  of  a  very  elaborate  scheme,  without  being  at 
all  aware  of  what  was  to  come  after.  Here,  for  in- 
stance, is  one,  living  nearly  one  thousand  six  hundred 


76  PROTESTANTISM. 

years  before  the  last  in  the  series,  who  lays  a  founda- 
tion (in  reference  to  man's  ruin,  to  God's  promises  and 
plan  for  human  restoration),  which  is  built  upon  and 
carried  forward  by  all,  without  exception,  that  follow. 
Here  come  a  multitude  that  prepare  each  for  his  suc- 
cessor— that  unconsciously  integrate  each  other —  that, 
finally,  when  reviewed,  make  up  a  total  drama,  of  which 
each  writer's  separate  share  would  have  been  utterly 
imperfect  without  corresponding  parts  that  he  could  not 
have  foreseen.  At  length  all  is  finished.  A  profound 
piece  of  music,  a  vast  oratorio,  perfect  and  of  elaborate 
unity,  has  resulted  from  a  long  succession  of  strains, 
each  for  itself  fragmentary.  On  such  a  final  creation 
resulting  from  such  a  distraction  of  parts,  it  is  indis- 
pensable to  suppose  an  overruling  inspiration,  in  order 
at  all  to  account  for  the  final  result  of  a  most  elaborate 
harmony.  Besides,  which  would  argue  some  incon- 
ceivable magic,  if  we  did  not  assume  a  providential 
inspiration  watching  over  the  coherencies,  tendencies, 
and  intertessellations  (to  use  a  learned  word)  of  the 
whole,  —  it  happens  that,  in  many  instances,  typical 
things  are  recorded  —  things  ceremonial,  that  could 
have  no  meaning  to  the  person  recording  —  prospective 
words,  that  were  reported  and  transmitted  in  a  spirit  of 
confiding  faith,  but  that  could  have  little  meaning  to  the 
reporting  parties  for  many  hundreds  of  years.  Briefly, 
a  great  mysterious  word  is  spelt  as  it  were  by  the  whole 
sum  of  the  scriptural  books  —  every  separate  book 
forming  a  letter  or  syllable  in  that  secret  and  that  un- 
finished word,  as  it  was  for  so  many  ages.  This  co- 
operation of  ages,  not  able  to  communicate  or  concert 
arrangements  with  each  other,  is  neither  more  nor  less 


PROTESTANTISM.  77 

an  argument  of  an  overruling  inspiration,  than  if  the 
separation  of  the  contributing  parties  were  by  space, 
and  not  by  time.  As  if,  for  example,  every  island  at 
the  same  moment  were  to  send  its  contribution,  without 
previous  concert,  to  a  sentence  or  chapter  of  a  book ; 
in  which  case  the  result,  if  full  of  meaning,  much  more 
if  full  of  awful  and  profound  meaning,  could  not  be 
explained  rationally  without  the  assumption  of  a  super- 
natural overruling  of  these  unconscious  co-operators  to 
a  common  result.  So  far  on  behalf  of  inspiration. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  a^  an  argument  in  denial  of  any 
blind  mechanic  inspiration  cleaving  to  words  and  sylla- 
bles, Phil,  notices  this  consequence  as  resulting  from 
such  an  assumption,  viz.,  that  if  you  adopt  any  one 
gospel,  St.  John's  suppose,  or  any  one  narrative  of  a 
particular  transaction,  as  inspired  in  this  minute  and 
pedantic  sense,  then  for  every  other  report,  which,  ad- 
hering to  the  spiritual  value  of  the  circumstances,  and 
virtually  the  same,  should  differ  in  the  least  of  the  de- 
tails, there  woul-d  instantly  arise  a  solemn  degradation. 
All  parts  of  Scripture,  in  fact,  would  thus  be  made 
active  and  operative  in  degrading  each  other. 

Such  is  P/ti7.'s  way  of  explaining  ^tonvavaTia  ^ 
{theopneustia) ,  or  divine  prompting,  so  as  to  reconcile 
the  doctrine  affirming  a  virtual  inspiration,  an  inspira- 
tion as  to  the  truths  revealed,  with  a  peremptory  denial 
of  any  inspiration  at  all,  as  to  the  mere  verbal  vehicle 
of  those  revelations.  He  is  evidently  as  sincere  in 
regard  to  the  inspiration  which  he  upholds  as  in  regard 
to  that  which  he  denies.  Phil,  is  honest,  and  Phil,  is 
able.  Now  comes  my  turn.  I  rise  to  support  my 
leader,  and  shall  attempt  to  wrench  this  notion  of  a 


78  PROTESTANTISM. 

verbal  inspiration  from  the  hands  of  its  champions  by  a 
reductio  ad  ahsurdum^  viz.,  by  showing  the  monstrous 
consequences  to  which  it  leads  —  which  form  of  logic 
rhil.  also  has  employed  briefly  in  the  last  paragraph 
of  last  month's  paper ;  but  mine  is  different  and  more 
elaborate.  Yet,  first  of  all,  let  me  frankly  confess  to 
the  reader,  that  some  people  allege  a  point-blank  as- 
sertion by  Scripture  itself  of  its  own  verbal  inspiration  ; 
which  assertion,  if  it  I'eally  had  any  existence,  would 
summarily  put  down  all  cavils  of  human  dialectics. 
That  makes  it  necessary  to  review  this  assertion.  This 
famous  passage  of  Scripture,  this  locus  classicus,  or 
prerogative  text,  pleaded  for  the  verbatim  et  literatim 
inspiration  of  the  Bible,  is  the  following  ;  and  I  will  so 
exhibit  its  very  words  as  that  the  reader,  even  if  no 
Grecian,  may  understand  the  point  in  litigation.     The 

passage  is  this  :    Ilaaa  yi^acjitj  {Itorcrevarog  y.at  axft/.iuog,  &C., 

taken  from  St.  Paul,  (2  Tim.  iii.  16.)  Let  us  construe 
it  literally,  expressing  the  Greek  by  Latin  characters  : 
Pasa  graphs,  all  written  lore  (or  every  writing)  — 
theopneustos,  God-breathed,  or,  God-prornpted  —  kai, 
and  (or,  also)  —  ophelimos,  serviceable — pros,  towards, 
didaskalian,  doctrinal  truth.  Now  this  sentence,  when 
thus  rendered  into  English  according  to  the  rigor  of  the 
Grecian  letter,  wants  something  to  complete  its  sense 
—  it  wants  an  is.  There  is  a  subject,  as  the  logicians 
say,  and  there  is  a  predicate  (or,  something  affirmed  of 
that  subject),  but  there  is  no  copula  to  connect  them  — 
we  miss  the  is.  This  omission  is  common  in  Greek, 
but  cannot  be  allowed  in  English.  The  is  must  be 
supplied  ;  but  where  must  it  be  supplied  ?  That's  the 
very  question,  for  there  is. a  choice  between  two  places; 


PROTESTANTISM.  79 

and,  according  to  the  choice,  will  the  word  theopneustos 
become  part  of  the  subject,  or  part  of  the  predicate  ; 
which  will  make  a  world  of  difference.  Let  us  try  it 
both  ways  :  — 

1.  All  writing  inspired  by  God  (i.  e.  being  inspired 
by  God,  supposing  it  inspired,  which  makes  theop- 
neustos part  of  the  subject)  is  also  profitable  for  teach- 
ing, &c. 

2.  All  writing  is  inspired  by  God,  and  profitable, 
6z;c.  (which  makes  theopneustos  part  of  the  predicate.) 

Now,  in  this  last  way  of  construing  the  text,  which 
is  the  way  adopted  by  our  authorized  version,  one  ob- 
jection strikes  everybody  at  a  glance,  viz.,  that  St.  Paul 
could  not  possibly  mean  to  say  of  all  writing,  indis- 
criminately, that  it  was  divinely  inspired,  this  being  so 
revoltingly  opposed  to  the  truth.  It  follows,  therefore, 
that,  on  this  way  of  interpolating  the  is,  we  must  under- 
stand the  Apostle  to  use  the  word  graphe,  writing,  in  a 
restricted  sense,  not  for  writing  generally,  but  for 
sacred  writing,  or  (as  our  English  phrase  runs)  '  Holy 
Writ;''  upon  which  will  arise  three  separate  demurs 
— Jirst^  one  already  stated  by  Phil.,  viz.,  that,  when 
graphe  is  used  in  this  sense,  it  is  accompanied  by  the 
article ;  the  phrase  is  either  ;;  -/Q^'p^n  '  the  writing,'  or 
else  (as  in  St.  Luke)  ui  ynacpai,  *  the  writings,'  just  as  in 
English  it  is  said,  '  the  Scripture,'  or  '  the  Scriptures.' 
Secondly,  that,  according  to  the  Greek  usage,  this 
would  not  be  the  natural  place  for  introducing  the  is. 
Thirdly  —  which  disarms  the  whole  objection  from  this 
text,  howsoever  construed  —  that,  after  all,  it  leaves  the 
dispute  with  the  bibliolaters  wholly  untouched.  We 
also,  the  anti-bibliolaters,  say  that  all  Scripture  is  in- 


80  PROTESTANTISM. 

spired,  though  we  may  not  therefore  suppose  the  Apos- 
tle to  be  hero  insisting  on  that  doctrine.  But  no  matter 
whether  he  is  or  not,  in  relation  to  this  dispute.  Both 
parties  are  contending  for  the  inspiration  —  so  far  they 
are  agreed  ;  the  question  between  them  arises  upon 
quite  another  point,  viz.,  as  to  the  mode  of  that  inspira- 
tion, whether  incarnating  its  golden  light  in  the  cor- 
ruptibilities of  perishing  syllables,  or  in  the  sanctities  of 
indefeasible,  word-transcending  ideas.  Now,  upon  that 
question,  the  apostolic  words,  torture  them  how  you 
please,  say  nothing  at  all. 

There  is,  then,  no  such  dogma  (or,  to  speak  Ger- 
manice,  no  such  macht-spruch)  in  behalf  of  verbal 
inspiration  as  has  been  ascribed  to  St.  Paul,  and  I  pass 
to  my  own  argument  against  it.  This  argument  turns 
upon  the  self-confounding  tendency  of  the  common 
form  ascribed  to  -dionvivana,  or  divine  inspiration. 
When  translated  from  its  true  and  lofty  sense  of  an  in- 
spiration—  brooding,  with  outstretched  wings,  over  the 
mighty  abyss  of  secret  truth  —  to  the  vulgar  sense  of  an 
inspiration,  burrowing,  like  a  rabbit  or  a  worm,  in 
grammatical  quillets  and  syllables,  mark  how  it  comes 
down  to  nothing  at  all ;  mark  how  a  stream,  pretending 
to  derive  itself  from  a  heavenly  fountain,  is  finally  lost 
and  confounded  in  a  morass  of  human  perplexities. 

First  of  all,  at  starting,  we  have  the  inspiration  (No. 
1)  to  the  original  composers  of  the  sacred  books.  That 
I  grant,  though  distinguishing  as  to  its  nature. 

Next,  we  want  another  inspiration  (No.  2)  for  the 
countless  translators  of  the  Bible.  Of  what  use  is  it  to 
a  German,  to  a  Swiss,  or  to  a  Scotsman,  that,  three 
thousand  years  before  the  Reformation,  the  author  of 


PROTESTANTISBI.  81 

the  Pentateuch  was  kept  from  erring  by  a  divuie  re- 
straint over  his  words,  if  the  authoi's  of  this  Reforma- 
tion—  Luther,  suppose,  Zwinglc,  John  Knox — either 
making  translations  themselves,  or  relying  upon  trans- 
lations made  by  others  under  no  such  verbal  restraint, 
have  been  left  free  to  bias  his  mind,  pretty  nearly  as 
much  as  if  the  original  Hebrew  writer  had  been  resigned 
to  his  own  human  discretion  ? 

Thirdly,  even  if  we  adopt  the  inspiration  No.  2,  that 
will  not  avail  us;  because  many  different  translators 
exist.  Does  the  very  earliest  translation  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  viz.,  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Septuagint,  always  agree  verbally  with  the  Hebrew  ? 
Or  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  always  with  the  Hebrew  } 
Or  do  the  earliest  Latin  versions  of  the  entire  Bible 
agree  verhaUy  with  modern  Latin  versions  ?  Jerome's 
Latin  version,  for  instance,  memorable  as  being  that 
adopted  by  the  Romish  Church,  and  known  under  the 
name  of  the  Vulgate,  does  it  agree  verbally  with  the 
Latin  versions  of  the  Bible  or  parts  of  the  Bible  made 
since  the  Reformation  }  In  the  English,  again,  if  we 
begin  with  the  translation  still  sleeping  in  MS.,  made 
five  centuries  ago,  and  passing  from  that  to  the  first 
printed  translation  (which  was,  I  tliink,  Coverdale's,  in 
1535),  if  we  thence  travel  down  to  our  own  day,  so  as 
to  include  all  that  have  confined  themselves  to  separate 
versions  of  some  one  book,  or  even  of  some  one  car- 
dinal text,  the  versions  that  differ  —  and  to  the  idolater 
of  words  all  diflerences  are  important —  may  be  de- 
scribed as  countless.  Here,  then,  on  that  doctrine  of 
inspiration  which  ascribes  so  much  to  the  power  of 
verbal  accuracy,  we  shall  want  a  fourth  inspiration, 
6 


82  PROTESTANTISM. 

No.  4,  for  the  guidance  of  each  separate  Christian  ap- 
plying himself  to  the  Scriptures  in  his  mother  tongue  ; 
he  will  have  to  select  not  one  (where  is  the  one  that 
has  been  uniformly  correct?)  but  a  multitude  ;  else  the 
same  error  will  again  rush  in  by  torrents  through  the 
license  of  interpretation  assumed  by  these  many  adverse 
translators. 

Fourthly,  as  these  differences  of  version  arise  often 
under  the  same  reading  of  the  original  text ;  but  as,  in 
the  meantime,  there  are  many  different  readings,  here 
a  fifth  source  of  possible  error  calls  for  a  fifth  inspira- 
tion overruling  us  to  the  proper  choice  amongst  various 
readings.  What  may  be  called  a  '  textual '  inspiration 
for  selecting  the  right  reading  is  requisite  for  the  very 
same  reason,  neither  more  nor  less,  which  supposes 
any  verbal  inspiration  originally  requisite  for  consti- 
tuting a  right  reading.  It  matters  not  in  which  stage  of 
the  Bible's  progress  the  error  commences  ;  first  stage 
and  last  stage  are  all  alike  in  the  sight  of  God.  There 
was,  reader,  as  perhaps  you  know,  about  six  score 
years  ago,  another  Phil.,  not  the  same  as  this  Phil. 
now  before  us  (who  would  be  quite  vexed  if  you  fancied 
him  as  old  as  all  that  comes  to  —  oh  dear,  no!  he's  not 
near  as  old)  —  well,  that  earlier  Phil,  was  Bentley,  who 
wrote  (under  the  name  of  Phileleutheros  Lipsiansis) 
a  pamphlet  connected  with  this  very  subject,  partly 
against  an  English  infidel  of  that  day.  In  that  pam- 
phlet, Phil,  the  first  pauses  to  consider  and  value  this 
very  objection  from  textual  variation  to  the  validity  of 
Scripture  :  for  the  infidel  (as  is  usual  with  infidels) 
being  no  great  scholar,  had  argued  as  though  it  were 
impossible  to  urge  anything  whatever  for  the  word  of 


PROTESTANTISM.  83 

GodJ  since  so  vast  a  variety  in  the  readings  rendered  it 
impossible  to  know  what  was  the  word  of  God.  Bent- 
ley,  though  rather  rough,  from  having  too  often  to  deal 
with  shallow  coxcombs,  was  really  and  unaffectedly  a 
pious  man.  He  was  shocked  at  this  argument,  and  set 
himself  seriously  to  consider  it.  Now,  as  all  the  va- 
rious readings  were  Greek,  and  as  Bentley  happened 
to  be  the  first  of  Grecians,  his  deliberate  review  of  this 
argument  is  entitled  to  great  attention.  There  were, 
at  that  moment  when  Bentley  spoke,  something  more 
(as  I  recollect)  than  ten  thousand  varieties  of  reading 
in  the  text  of  the  New  Testament ;  so  many  had  been 
collected  in  the  early  part  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  by 
Wetstein,  the  Dutchman,  who  was  then  at  the  head  of  the 
collators.  Mill,  the  Englishman,  was  at  that  very  time 
making  further  collations.  .  How  many  he  added,  I  can- 
not tell  without  consulting  books  —  a  thing  which  I  very 
seldom  do.  But  since  that  day,  and  long  after  Bentley 
and  Mill  were  in  their  graves,  Griesbach,  the  German, 
has  risen  to  the  top  of  the  tree,  by  towering  above  them 
all  in  the  accuracy  of  his  collations.  Yet,  as  the  har- 
vest comes  before  the  gleanings,  we  may  be  sure  that 
Wetslein's  barn  housed  the  very  wealth  of  all  this  va- 
riety. Of  this  it  was,  then,  that  Bentley  spoke.  And 
what  was  it  that  he  spoke  ?  Why,  he,  the  great  scholar, 
pronounced,  as  with  the  authority  of  a  Chancery  decree, 
that  the  vast  majority  of  various  readings  made  no  dif- 
ference at  all  in  the  sense.  In  the  sense,  observe  ;  but 
many  things  viight  make  a  difference  in  the  sense 
which  would  still  leave  the  doctrine  undisturbed.  For 
instance,  in  the  passage  about  a  camel  going  through 
the  eye  of  a  needle,  it  will  make  a  difference  in  the 


84  PROTESTANTISai. 

sense,  whether  you  read  in  the  Greek  word  for  camel 
the  oriental  animal  of  that  name,  or  a  ship's  cable ;  but 
no  difference  at  all  arises  in  the  spiritual  doctrine.  Or, 
illustrating  the  case  out  of  Shakspeare,  it  makes  no 
difference  as  to  the  result,  whether  you  read  in  Hamlet 
*  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles,'  or  (as  has  been 
suggested),  '  against  a  siege  of  troubles  ;'  but  it  makes 
a  difference  as  to  the  integrity  of  the  image.^  What 
has  a  sea  to  do  with  arms  ?  What  has  a  camel, '"  the 
quadruped,  to  do  with  a  needle  ?  A  prodigious  minor- 
ity, therefore,  there  is  of  such  various  readings  as 
slightly  affect  the  sense ;  but  this  minority  becomes 
next  to  nothing,  when  we  inquire  for  such  as  affect  any 
doctrine.  This  was  Bentley's  opinion  upon  the  possi- 
ble disturbance  offered  to  the  Christian  by  various  read- 
ings in  the  New  Testament.  You  thought  that  the 
carelessness,  or,  at  times,  even  the  treachery  of  men, 
through  so  many  centuries,  must  have  ended  in  cor- 
rupting the  original  truth  ;  yet,  after  all,  you  see  the 
light  burns  as  brightly  and  steadily  as  ever.  We,  now, 
that  are  not  bibliolatrists,  no  more  believe  that,  from  the 
disturbance  of  a  few  words  here  or  there,  any  evangel- 
ical truth  can  have  suffered  a  wound  or  mutilation, 
than  we  believe  that  the  burning  of  a  wood,  or  even  of 
a  forest,  which  happens  in  our  vast  American  posses- 
sions, sometimes  from  natural  causes  (lightning,  or 
spontaneous  combustion),  sometimes  from  an  Indian's 
carelessness,  can  seriously  have  injured  botany.  But 
for  Ztim,  who  conceives  an  inviolable  sanctity  to  have 
settled  upon  each  word  and  particle  of  the  original 
record,  there  should  have  been  strictly  required  an  in- 
spiration (No.  5)  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  various 


PROTESTANTISM.  85 

readings  arising.  It  is  too  late,  however,  to  pray  for 
Lhat ;  the  various  readings  have  arisen  ;  here  they  are  ; 
and  what's  to  be  done  now  ?  The  only  resource  for 
the  bibliolatrist  is  —  to  invoke  a  new  inspiration  (No.  4) 
for  helping  him  out  of  his  difficulty,  by  guiding  his 
choice.  AVe,  anti-bibliolaters,  are  not  so  foolish  as  to 
believe  that  God  having  once  sent  a  deep  message  of 
truth  to  man,  would  suffer  it  to  lie  at  the  mercy  of  a 
careless  or  a  wicked  copyist.  Treasures  so  vast  would 
not  be  left  at  the  mercy  of  accidents  so  vile.  Very 
litde  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago,  a  London  com- 
positor, not  wicked  at  all,  but  simply  drunk,  in  printing 
Deuteronomy,  left  out  the  most  critical  of  words  ;  the 
seventh  commandment  he  exhibited  thus  —  'Thou  shalt 
commit  adultery  ; '  in  which  form  the  sheet  was  struck 
off.  And  though  in  those  days  no  practical  mischief 
could  arise  from  this  singular  erratum,  which  English 
Griesbachs  will  hardly  enter  upon  the  roll  of  various 
readings,  yet,  harmless  as  it  was,  it  met  with  punish- 
ment. '  Scandalous  ! '  said  Laud,  '  shocking  !  to  tell 
men  in  the  seventeenth  centuiy,  as  a  biblical  rule,  that 
they  positively  must  commit  adultery  ! '  The  brother 
compositors  of  this  drunken  biblical  reviser,  being  too 
honorable  to  betray  the  individual  delinquent,  the  Star 
Chamber  fined  the  whole  '  chapel.'  Now,  the  copyists 
of  MSS.  were  as  certain  to  be  sometimes  drunk  as  this 
compositor  —  famous  by  his  act  —  utterly  forgotten  in 
his  person  —  whose  crime  is  remembered  —  the  record 
of  whose  name  has  perished.  We  therefore  hold,  that 
it  never  was  in  the  power,  or  placed  within  the  discre- 
tion, of  any  copyist,  whether  writer  or  printer,  to  injure 
the  sacred  oracles.     But  the  bibliolatrist  cannot  sav 


86  PROTESTANTISM. 

that ;  because,  if  he  does,  then  he  is  formally  unsaying 
the  veiy  principle  which  is  meant  by  bibliolatry.  He 
therefore  must  require  another  supplementary  inspira- 
tion, viz.,  No.  4,  to  direct  him  in  his  choice  of  the  true 
reading  amongst  so  many  as  continually  offer  them- 
selves. ^^ 

Fifthly,  as  all  words  cover  ideas,  and  many  a  word 
covers  a  choice  of  ideas,  and  very  many  ideas  split 
into  a  variety  of  modifications,  we  shall,  even  after  a 
fourth  inspiration  has  qualified  us  for  selecting  the  true 
reading,  still  be  at  a  loss  how,  upon  this  right  reading, 
to  fix  the  right  acceptation.  So  tliere^  at  that  fifth 
stage,  in  rushes  the  total  deluge  of  human  theological 
controversies.  One  church,  or  one  sect,  insists  upon 
one  sense  ;  another,  and  another,  '  to  the  end  of  time,' 
insists  upon  a  different  sense.  Babel  is  upon  us  ;  and, 
to  get  rid  of  Babel,  we  shall  need  a  fifth  inspiration. 
No.  5  is  clamorously  called  for.^^ 

But  we  all  know,  each  knows  by  his  own  experience, 
that  No.  5  is  not  forthcoming  ;  and,  in  the  absence  of 
that,  what  avail  for  us  the  others  ?  '  Man  overboard  ! ' 
is  the  crj'  upon  deck  ;  but  what  avails  it  for  the  poor 
drowning  creature  that  a  rope  being  thrown  to  him  is 
thoroughly  secured  at  one  end  to  the  ship,  if  the  other 
end  floats  wide  of  his  grasp  ?  We  are  in  prison  :  we 
descend  from  our  prison-roof,  that  seems  high  as  the 
clouds,  by  knotting  together  all  the  prison  bed-clothes, 
and  all  the  aids  from  friends  outside.  But  all  is  too 
short :  after  swarming  down  the  line,  in  middle  air,  we 
find  ourselves  hanging :  sixty  feet  of  line  are  still 
wanting.  To  reascend  —  that  is  impossible:  to  drop 
boldly  —  alas!  <Aai  is  to  die. 


PROTESTANTISM.  87 

Meantime,  what  need  of  this  eternal  machinery,  that 
eternally  is  breaking  like  ropes  of  sand  ?  Or  of  this 
earth  resting  on  an  elephant,  that  rests  on  a  tortoise, 
that,  when  all  is  done,  must  still  consent  to  rest  on  the 
common  atmosphere  of  God  ?  Tliese  chains  of  inspira- 
tion are  needless.  The  great  ideas  of  the  Bible  protect 
themselves.  The  heavenly  truths,  by  their  own  imper- 
ishablcness,  defeat  the  mortality  of  languages  with 
which  for  a  moment  they  are  associated.  Is  the  light- 
ning enfeebled  or  dimmed,  because  for  thousands  of 
years  it  has  blended  with  the  tarnish  of  earth  and  the 
steams  of  earthly  graves  ?  Or  light,  which  so  long  has 
travelled  in  the  chambers  of  our  sickly  air,  and  searched 
the  haunts  of  impurity —  is  that  less  pure  than  it  was  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  ?  Or  that  more  holy  light 
of  truth  —  the  truth,  suppose,  written  from  his  creation 
upon  the  tablets  of  man's  lieart  —  which  truth  never  was 
imprisoned  in  any  Hebrew  or  Greek,  but  has  ranged 
for  ever  through  courts  and  camps,  deserts  and  cities, 
the  original  lesson  of  justice  to  man  and  piety  to  God 
—  has  that  become  tainted  by  intercourse  with  flesh  ? 
or  has  it  become  hard  to  decipher,  because  the  very 
heart,  that  human  heart  where  it  is  inscribed,  is  so  often 
blotted  with  falsehoods  ?  You  are  aware,  perhaps, 
reader,  that  in  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  off  the  coast  of 
Asia  Minor  (and,  indeed,  elsewhere),  through  the  very 
middle  of  the  salt-sea  billows,  rise  up,  in  shining  col- 
umns, fountains  wof  fresh  water. '^  In  the  desert  of  the 
sea  are  found  Arabian  fountains  of  Ishmael  and  Isaac  ! 
Are  these  fountains  poisoned  for  tlie  poor  victim  of 
fever,  because  they  have  to  travel  through  a  contagion 
of  waters  not  potable  ?     Oh,   no  !     They  bound   up- 


88  PROTESTANTISM. 

wards  like  arrows,  cleaving  the  seas  above  with  as 
much  projectile  force  as  the  glittering  water-works  of 
Versailles  cleave  the  air,  and  rising  as  sweet  to  the  lip 
as  ever  mountain  torrent  that  comforted  the  hunted 
deer. 

It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  any  truth,  launched 
by  God  upon  the  agitations  of  things  so  unsettled  as 
languages,  can  perish.  The  very  frailty  of  languages 
is  the  strongest  proof  of  this  ;  because  it  is  impossible 
to  suppose  that  anything  so  great  can  have  been  com- 
mitted to  the  fidelity  of  anything  so  treacherous.  There 
is  laughter  in  heaven  when  it  is  told  of  man,  that  he 
fancies  his  earthly  jargons,  which,  to  heavenly  ears, 
must  sound  like  the  chucklings  of  poultry,  equal  to  the 
task  of  hiding  or  distorting  any  light  of  revelation. 
Had  ivords  possessed  any  authority  or  restraint  over 
scriptural  truth,  a  Inuch  worse  danger  would  have 
threatened  it  than  any  malice  in  the  human  will, 
suborning  false  copyists,  or  surreptitiously  favoring 
depraved  copies.  Even  a  general  conspiracy  of  the 
human  race  for  such  a  purpose  would  avail  against  the 
Bible  only  as  a  general  conspiracy  to  commit  suicide 
might  avail  against  the  drama  of  God's  providence. 
Either  conspiracy  would  first  become  dangerous  when 
first  either  became  possible.  But  a  real  danger  seems 
to  lie  in  the  insensible  corruption  going  on  for  ever 
within  all  languages,  by  means  of  which  they  are  eter- 
nally dying  away  from  their  own  vital  powers  ;  and 
that  is  a  danger  which  is  travelling  fast  after  all  the  wis- 
dom and  the  wit,  the  eloquence  and  the  poetry  of  this 
earth,  like  a  mountainous  wave,  and  will  finally  over- 
take them  —  their  very  vehicles  being  lost  and  con- 


PROTESTANTISM.  89 

founded  to  human  sensibilities.  But  such  a  wave  will 
break  harmlessly  against  scriptural  truth  ;  and  not 
merely  because  that  truth  will  for  ever  evade  such  a 
shock  by  its  eternal  transfer  from  language  to  language 
—  from  languages  dying  out  to  languages  in  vernal 
bloom  —  but  also  because,  if  it  could  not  evade  the 
shock,  supreme  truth  would  surmount  it  for  a  pro- 
founder  reason.  A  danger  analogous  to  this  once  ex- 
isted in  a  different  form.  The  languages  into  which  the 
New  Testament  was  first  translated  offered  an  apparent 
obstacle  to  the  translation  that  seemed  insurmountable. 
The  Latin,  for  instance,  did  not  present  the  spiritual 
words  which  such  a  translation  demanded  ;  and  how 
should  it,  when  the  corresponding  ideas  had  no  exist- 
ence amongst  the  Romans.?  Yet,  if  not  spiritual,  the 
language  of  Rome  was  intellectual  ;  it  was  the  lan- 
guage of  a  cultivated  and  noble  race.  But  what  shall 
be  done  if  the  New  Testament  wishes  to  drive  a  tunnel 
through  a  rude  forest  race,  having  an  undeveloped  lan- 
guage, and  understanding  nothing  but  war  ?  Four  cen- 
turies after  Christ,  the  Gothic  Bishop  Ulphilas  set  about 
translating  the  Gospels  for  his  countrymen.  He  had 
no  words  for  expressing  spiritual  relations  or  spiritual 
operations.  The  new  nomenclature  of  moral  graces, 
humility,  resignation,  the  spirit  of  forgiveness,  &c., 
hitherto  unrecognised  for  such  amongst  men,  having 
first  of  all  been  shown  in  blossom,  and  distinguished 
from  weeds,  by  Christian  gardening,  had  to  be  repro- 
duced in  the  Gothic  language,  with  apparently  no 
means  whatever  of  effecting  it.  In  this  earliest  of  what 
we  may  call  ancestral  translations,  (for  the  Goths  were 
of  our  own  blood,)  and,  therefore,  by  many  degrees, 


90  PROTESTANTISM. 

this  most  interesting  of  translations,  may  be  seen  to  this 
day,  after  fourteen  centuries  and  upwards  have  passed, 
how  the  good  bisliop  succeeded,  to  what  extent  he  suc- 
ceeded, and  by  what  means.  I  shall  take  a  separate 
opportunity  for  investigating  that  problem  ;  but  at 
present  I  will  content  myself  with  noticing  a  remarka- 
ble principle  which  applies  to  the  case,  and  illustrating 
it  by  a  remarkable  anecdote.  The  principle  is  this — ■ 
that  in  the  grander  parts  of  knowledge,  which  do  not 
deal  much  with  petty  details,  nearly  all  the  building  or 
constructive  ideas  (those  ideas  which  build  up  the  sys- 
tem of  that  particular  knowledge)  lie  involved  within 
each  other ;  so  that  any  one  of  the  series,  being  awak- 
ened in  the  mind,  is  sufficient  (given  a  multitude  of 
minds)  to  lead  backwards  or  forwards,  analytically  or 
synthetically,  into  many  of  the  rest.  That  is  the  prin- 
ciple ;  ^^  and  the  story  which  illustrates  it  is  this  :  — A 
great  work  of  Apollonius,  the  sublime  geometer,  was 
supposed  in  part  to  have  perished  :  seven  of  the  eight 
books  remained  in  the  original  Greek  ;  but  the  eighth 
was  missing.  The  Greek,  after  much  search,  was  not 
recovered  ;  but  at  length  there  was  found  (in  the  Bod- 
leian, I  think,)  an  Arabic  translation  of  it.  An  English 
mathematician,  Halley,  knowing  not  one  word  of  Ara- 
bic, determined  (without  waiting  for«that  Arabic  key) 
to  pick  the  lock  of  this  MS.  And  he  did  so.  Through 
strength  of  preconception,  derived  equally  from  his 
knowledge  of  the  general  subject,  and  from  his  know- 
ledge of  this  particular  work  in  •  its  earlier  sections, 
using  also  to  some  extent  the  subtle  art  of  the  deci- 
pherer,'^ now  become  so  powerful  an  instrument  of 
analysis,   he   translated    the   whole   Arabic   MS.      lie 


PEOTESTANTISM.  91 

printed  it  —  he  published  it.  He  tore  —  he  extorted 
the  truth  from  the  darkness  of  an  unknown  language  — 
he  would  not  suffer  the  Arabic  to  benefit  by  its  own 
obscurity  to  the  injury  of  mathematics.  And  the  book 
remains  a  monument  to  this  day,  that  a  system  of  ideas, 
having  internal  coherency  and  interdependency,  is 
vainly  hidden  under  an  unknown  tongue  ;  that  it  may 
be  illuminated  and  restored  chiefly  through  their  own 
reciprocal  involutions.  The  same  principle  applies, 
and  a  fortiori  applies,  to  religious  truth,  as  one  which 
lies  far  deeper  than  geometry  in  the  spirit  of  man,  one 
to  which  the  inner  attestation  is  profounder,  and  to 
which  the  key-notes  of  Scripture  (once  awakened  on 
the  great  organ  of  the  heart)  are  sure  to  call  up  corres- 
ponding echoes.  It  is  not  in  the  power  of  language  to 
arrest  or  to  defeat  this  mode  of  truth  ;  because,  when 
once  the  fundamental  base  is  furnished  by  revelation, 
the  human  heart  itself  is  able  to  co-operate  in  develop- 
ing the  great  harmonies  of  the  system,  without  aid 
from  language,  and  in  defiance  of  language  —  without 
aid  from  human  learning,  and  in  defiance  of  human 
learning. 

Finally,  there  is  another  security  against  the  sup- 
pression or  distortion  of  any  great  biblical  truth  by  false 
readings,  which  I  will  state  in  the  briefest  terms.  The 
reader  is  aware  of  the  boyish  sport  sometimes  called 
'drake-stone;'  a  flattish  stone  is  thrown  by  a  little 
dexterity  so  as  to  graze  the  surface  of  a  river,  but  so, 
also,  as  in  grazing  it  to  dip  below  the  surface,  to  rise 
again  from  this  dip,  again  to  dip,  again  to  ascend,  and 
so  on  alternately,  a  plusieurs  reprises.  In  the  same 
way,  with  the  same  effect  of  alternate  resurrections,  all 


92  PROTESTANTISM. 

scriptural  truths  reverberate  and  difTuse  themselves 
along  the  pages  of  the  Bible  ;  none  is  confined  to  one 
text,  or  to  one  mode  of  enunciation  ;  all  parts  of  the 
scheme  are  eternally  chasing  each  other,  like  the  parts 
of  a  fugue  ;  they  hide  themselves  in  one  chapter,  only 
to  restore  themselves  in  another  ;  they  diverge,  only  to 
recombine  ;  and  under  such  a  vast  variety  of  expres- 
sions, that  even  in  that  way,  supposing  language  to  have 
powers  over  religious  truth  —  which  it  never  had,  or  can 
have  —  any  abuse  of  such  a  power  would  be  thoroughly 
neutralized.  The  case  resembles  the  diffusion  of  vege- 
table seeds  through  the  air  and  through  the  waters  : 
draw  a  cordon  sanitaire  against  dandelion  or  thistle- 
down, and  see  if  the  armies  of  earth  would  suffice  to 
interrupt  this  process  of  radiation,  which  yet  is  but  the 
distribution  of  weeds.  Suppose,  for  instance,  the  text 
about  the  three  heavenly  witnesses  to  have  been  elimi- 
nated finally  as  an  interpolation.  The  first  thought  is 
—  there  goes  to  wreck  a  great  doctrine!  Not  at  all. 
That  text  occupied  but  a  corner  of  the  garden.  The 
truth,  and  the  secret  implications  of  the  truth,  have 
escaped  at  a  thousand  points  in  vast  arches  above  our 
heads,  rising  high  above  the  garden  wall,  and  have 
sown  the  earth  with  memorials  of  the  mystery  which 
they  envelope. 

The  final  inference  is  this  —  that  scriptural  truth  is 
endowed  with  a  self-conservative  and  a  self-restorative 
virtue  ;  it  needs  no  long  successions  of  verbal  protec- 
tion by  inspiration  ;  it  is  self-protected  ;  first,  internally, 
by  the  complex  power  which  belongs  to  the  Christian 
system  of  involving  its  own  integrations,  in  the  same 
way  as  a  musical  chord  involves  its  own  successions  of 


PROTESTANTISM.  93 

sound,  and  its  own  resolutions ;  secondly,  in  an  exter- 
nal and  obvious  way,  it  is  protected  by  its  prodigious 
iteration,  and  secret  presupposal  in  all  varieties  of  form. 
Consequently,  as  the  peril  connected  with  language  is 
thus  effectually  barred,  the  call  for  any  verbal  inspira- 
tion (which,  on  separate  grounds,  is  shown  to  be  self- 
confounding)  shows  itself  now,  in  a  second  form,  to  be 
a  gratuitous  delusion,  since,  in  eiTect,  it  is  a  call  for 
protection  against  a  danger  which  cannot  have  any 
existence. 

There  is  another  variety  of  bibliolatry  arising  in  a 
different  way  —  not  upon  errors  of  language  incident  to 
human  infirmity,  but  upon  deliberate  errors  indispensa- 
ble to  divine  purposes.  The  case  is  one  which  has 
been  considered  with  far  too  little  attention,  else  it 
could  never  have  been  thought  strange  that  Christ 
should  comply  in  things  indifferent  with  popular  errors* 
A  few  words  will  put  the  reader  in  possession  of  my 
view.  Speaking  of  the  Bible,  Phil,  says,  '  We  admit 
that  its  separate  parts  are  the  work  of  frail  and  fallible 
human  beings.  We  do  not  seek  to  build  upon  it  sys- 
tems of  cosmogony,  chronology,  astronomy,  and  natural 
history.  We  know  no  reason  of  internal  or  external 
probability  which  should  induce  us  to  believe  that  such 
matters  could  ever  have  been  the  subjects  of  direct  rev- 
elation.' Is  thai  all  ?  There  is  no  reason,  certainly, 
for  expectations  so  foolish  ;  but  is  there  no  adamantine 
reason  against  them  ?  It  is  no  business  of  the  Bible,  we 
are  told,  to  teach  science.  Certainly  not  ;  but  that  is 
far  too  little.  It  is  an  obligation  resting  upon  the  Bible, 
if  it  is  to  be  consistent  with  itself,  that  it  should  refuse 
to  teach  science  ;  and,  if  the  Bible  ever  had  taught  any 


94  PROTESTANTISM. 

one  art,  science,  or  process  of  life,  capital  doubts  would 
have  clouded  our  confidence  in  the  authority  of  the 
book.  By  what  caprice,  it  would  have  been  asked,  is 
a  divine  mission  abandoned  suddenly  for  a  human  mis- 
sion ?  By  what  caprice  is  this  one  science  taught,  and 
others  not  r  Or  these  two,  suppose,  and  not  all  ?  But 
an  objection,  even  deadlier,  would  have  followed.  It 
is  clear  as  is  the  purpose  of  daylight,  that  the  whole 
body  of  the  arts  and  sciences  composes  one  vast  ma- 
chinery for  the  irritation  and  development  of  the  human 
intellect.  For  this  end  they  exist.  To  see  God, ^there- 
fore, descending  into  the  arena  of  science,  and  con- 
tending, as  it  were,  for  his  own  prizes,  by  teaching 
science  in  the  Bible,  would  be  to  see  him  intercepting 
from  their  self-evident  destination,  (viz.,  man's  intel- 
lectual benefit,)  his  own  problems  by  solving  them  him- 
self. No  spectacle  could  more  dishonor  the  divine 
idea.  The  Bible  must  not  teach  ant/thing  that  man  can 
teach  himself.  Does  the  doctrine  require  a  revelation  ? 
—  then  nobody  but  God  can  teach  it.  Does  it  require 
none  ?  —  then  in  whatever  case  God  has  qualified  man 
to  do  a  thing  for  himself,  he  has  in  that  very  qualifica- 
tion silently  laid  an  injunction  upon  man  to  do  it,  by 
giving  the  power.  But  it  is  fancied  that  a  divine 
teacher,  without  descending  to  the  unworthy  office  of 
teaching  science,  might  yet  have  kept  his  own  language 
free  from  all  collusion  with  human  error.  Hence,  for 
instance,  it  was  argued  at  one  time,  that  any  language 
in  the  Bible  implying  the  earth  to  be  stationary,  and 
central  to  our  system,  could  not  not  have  been  a  com- 
pliance with  the  popular  errors  of  the  time,  but  must  be 
taken  to  express  the  absolute  truth.     And  so  grew  the 


TROTESTANTISM.  95 

anti-Galilean  fanatics.  Out  of  similar  notions  have 
risen  the  absurdities  of  a  polemic  Bible  chronology, 
&C.16  Meantime,  if  a  man  sets  himself  steadily  to  con- 
template the  consequences  which  must  inevitably  have 
followed  any  deviation  from  the  usual  erroneous  phrase- 
ology, he  will  see  the  utter  impossibility  that  a  teacher 
(pleading  a  heavenly  mission)  could  allow  himself  to 
deviate  by  one  hair's  breadth  (and  why  should  he  wish 
to  deviate  ?)  from  the  ordinary  language  of  the  times. 
To  have  uttered  one  syllable  for  instance,  that  implied 
motion  in  the  earth,  would  have  issued  into  the  follow- 
ing ruins  :  —  First,  it  would  have  tainted  the  teacher 
with  the  suspicion  of  lunacy  ;  and,  secondly,  would 
have  placed  him  in  this  inextricable  dilemma.  On  the 
one  hand,  to  answer  the  questions  prompted  by  his  own 
perplexing  language,  would  have  opened  upon  him,  as 
a  necessity,  one  stage  after  another  of  scientific  cross- 
examination,  until  his  spiritual  mission  would  have  been 
forcibly  swallowed  up  in  the  mission  of  natural  philoso- 
pher; but,  on  the  other  hand,  to  pause  resolutely  at  any 
one  stage  of  this  public  examination,  and  to  refuse  all 
further  advance,  would  be,  in  the  popular  opinion,  to 
retreat  as  a  baffled  disputant  from  insane  paradoxes 
which  he  had  not  been  able  to  support.  One  step 
taken  in  that  direction  was  fatal,  whether  the  great 
envoy  retreated  from  his  own  words  to  leave  behind 
the  impression  that  he  was  defeated  as  a  rash  specula- 
tor, or  stood  to  these  words,  and  thus  fatally  entangled 
himself  in  the  inexhaustible  succession  of  explanations 
and  justifications.  In  either  event  the  spiritual  mission 
was  at  an  end  :  it  would  have  perished  in  shouts  of  de- 
rision, from  which  there  could   have  been  no  retreat. 


96  PROTESTANTISM. 

and  no  retrieval  of  character.  The  greatest  of  astron- 
omers, rather  than  seem  ostentatious  or  unseasonably 
learned,  will  stoop  to  the  popular  phrase  of  the  sun's 
rising,  or  the  sun's  motion  in  the  ecliptic.  But  God, 
for  a  purpose  commensurate  with  man's  eternal  welfare, 
is  by  these  critics  supposed  incapable  of  the  same  petty 
abstinence. 

The  same  line  of  argument  applies  to  all  the  com- 
pliances of  Christ  with  the  Jewish  prejudices  (partly 
imported  from  the  Euphrates)  as  to  demonology,  witch- 
craft, &c.  By  the  way,  in  this  last  word,  *  witchcraft,' 
and  the  too  memorable  histories  connected  with  it,  lies 
a  perfect  mine  of  bibliolatrous  madness.  As  it  illus- 
trates the  folly  and  the  wickedness  of  the  biliolaters, 
let  us  pause  upon  it. 

The  word  icitch,  these  bibliolaters  take  it  for  granted, 
must  mean  exactly  what  the  original  Hebrew  means,  or 
the  Greek  word  chosen  by  the  LXX.  ;  so  much,  and 
neither  more  nor  less.  That  is,  from  total  ignorance 
of  the  machinery  by  which  language  moves,  they  fancy 
that  every  idea  and  word  which  exists,  or  has  existed, 
for  any  nation,  ancient  or  modern,  must  have  a  direct 
interchangeable  equivalent  in  all  other  languages  ;  and 
that,  if  the  dictionaries  do  not  show  it,  that  must  be 
because  the  dictionaries  are  bad.  Will  these  worthy 
people  have  the  goodness,  then,  to  translate  coquette 
into  Hebrew,  and  post-office  into  Greek  ?  The  fact  is, 
that  all  languages,  and  in  the  I'atio  of  their  develop- 
ment, offer  ideas  absolutely  separate  and  exclusive  to 
themselves.  In  the  highly  cultured  languages  of  Eng- 
land, France,  and  Germany,  are  words,  by  thousands, 
which  are   strictly  untranslatable.     They  may  be  ap- 


PROTESTANTISM.  97 

preached,  but  cannot  be  reflected  as  from  a  mirror. 
To  take  an  image  from  the  language  of  eclipses,  the 
correspondence  between  the  disk  of  the  original  word 
and  its  translated  representative  is,  in  thousands  of  in- 
stances, not  annular ;  the  centres  do  not  coincide  ;  the 
words  overlap ;  and  this  arises  from  the  varying  modes 
in  which  different  nations  combine  ideas.  The  French 
word  shall  combine  the  elements,  Z,  7n,  n,  o  —  the 
nearest  English  word,  perhaps,  m,  n,  o,  p.  For  in- 
stance, in  all  words  applied  to  the  nuances  of  manners, 
and  generally  to  social  differences,  how  prodigious  is 
the  wealth  of  the  French  language  !  How  merely 
untranslatable  for  all  Europe  !  I  suppose,  my  bibli- 
olater, you  have  not  yet  finished  your  Hebrew  or  Sa- 
maritan translation  of  coquette.  Well,  you  shall  be 
excused  from  that^  if  you  will  only  translate  it  into 
English.  You  cannot :  you  are  obliged  to  keep  the 
French  word  ;  and  yet  you  take  for  granted,  without 
inquiry,  that  in  the  word  '  witchcraft,'  and  in  the  word 
'  witch,'  applied  to  the  sorceress  of  Endor,  our  author- 
ized English  Bible  of  King  James's  day  must  be  cor- 
rect. And  your  wicked  bibliolatrous  ancestors  pro- 
ceeded on  that  idea  throughout  Christendom  to  murder 
harmless,  friendless,  and  oftentimes  crazy  old  women. 
Meantime  the  witch  of  Endor  in  no  respect  resembled 
our  modern  domestic  witch.^"^  There  was  as  much 
difference  as  between  a  Roman  Proconsul,  surrounded 
with  eagle-bearers,  and  a  commercial  Consul's  clerk 
with  a  pen  behind  his  ear.  Apparently  she  was  not  so 
much  a  Medea  as  an  Erichtho.  (See  the  Pharsalia.) 
She  was  an  Evocatrix,  or  female  necromancer,  evoking 
phantoms  that  stood  in  some  unknown  relation  to  dead 
7 


98  PROTESTANTISM. 

men;  and  tlien  by  some  artifice  (it  has  been  supposed) 
of  ventriloquism,'^  causing  these  phantoms  to  deliver 
oracular  answers  upon  great  political  questions.  Oh, 
that  one  had  lived  in  the  times  of  those  New-England 
wretches  that  desolated  whole  districts  and  terrified  vast 
provinces  by  their  judicial  murders  of  witches,  under 
plea  of  a  bibliolatrous  warrant ;  until  at  last  the  fiery 
furnace,  which  they  had  heated  for  women  and  chil- 
dren, shot  forth  flames  that,  like  those  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's furnace,  seizing  upon  his  very  agents,  began 
to  reach  some  of  the  murderous  judges  and  denoun- 
cers ! 

Yet,  after  all,  are  there  not  express  directions  in 
Scripture  to  exterminate  witches  from  the  land  ?  Cer- 
tainly ;  but  that  does  not  argue  any  scriptural  re- 
cognition of  witchcraft  as  a  possible  offence.  An 
imaginary  crime  may  imply  a  criminal  intention  that 
is  not  imaginary  ;  but  also,  which  much  more  directly 
concerns  the  interests  of  a  state,  a  criminal  purpose, 
that  rests  upon  a  pure  delusion,  may  work  by  means 
that  are  felonious  for  ends  that  are  fatal.  At  this  mo- 
ment, we  English  and  the  Spaniards  have  laws,  and 
severe  ones,  against  witchcraft,  viz.,  in  the  West  Indies, 
and  indispensable  it  is  that  we  should.  The  Obeah 
man  from  Africa  can  do  no  mischief  to  one  of  us.  The 
proud  and  enlightened  white  man  despises  his  arts  ;  and 
for  him,  therefore,  these  arts  have  no  existence,  for  they 
work  only  through  strong  preconceptions  of  their  re- 
ality, and  through  trembling  faith  in  their  efficacy. 
But  by  that  very  agency  they  are  all-sufficient  for  the 
ruin  of  the  poor  credulous  negro  ;  he  is  mastered  by 
original  faith,  and  has    perished   thousands  of  times 


PROTESTANTISM.  99 

under  the  knowledge  that  Obi  had  been  set  for  him. 
Justly,  therefore,  do  our  colonial  courts  punish  the 
Obeah  sorcerer,  who  (though  an  impostor)  is  not  the 
less  a  murderer.  Now  the  Hebrew  witchcraft  was 
probably  even  worse  ;  equally  resting  on  delusions, 
nevertheless,  equally  it  worked  for  unlawful  ends,  and 
(which  chiefly  made  it  an  object  of  divine  wrath)  it 
worked  through  idolatrous  agencies.  It  must,  there- 
fore, have  kept  up  that  connection  with  idolatry  which 
it  was  the  unceasing  effort  of  the  Hebrew  polity  to  ex- 
terminate from  the  land.  Consequently,  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth  might,  as  consistently  as  our  own, 
denounce  and  punish  witchcraft  without  liability  to  the 
inference  that  it  therefore  recognised  the  pretensions  of 
witches  as  real,  in  the  sense  of  working  their  bad  ends 
by  the  means  which  they  alleged.  Their  magic  was 
causatively  of  no  virtue  at  all,  but,  being  believed  in, 
through  this  belief  it  became  the  occasional  means  of 
exciting  the  imagination  of  its  victims;  after  which  the 
consequences  were  the  same  as  if  the  magic  had  acted 
physically  according  to  its  pretences.'^ 

II.  Development,  as  applicable  to  Christianity,  is  a 
doctrine  of  the  very  days  that  are  passing  over  our 
heads,  and  due  to  Mr.  Newman,  originally  the  ablest 
son  of  Puseyism,  but  now  a  powerful  architect  of  re- 
ligious philosophy  on  his  own  account.  I  should  have 
described  him  more  briefly  as  a  '  master-builder,'  had 
my  ear  been  able  to  endure  a  sentence  ending  with  two 
consecutive  trochees,  and  each  of  those  trochees  end- 
ing with  the  same  syllable  er.  Ah,  reader !  I  would 
the  gods  had  made  thee  rhythmical,  that  thou  mightest 
comprehend  the  thousandth  part  of  my  labors  in  the 


100  PROTESTANTISM. 

evasion  of  cacoplion.  Phil,  has  a  general  dislike  to 
the  Puseyites,  though  he  is  too  learned  to  be  ignorant, 
(as  are  often  the  Low-Church,  or  Evangelical,  party 
in  England,)  that,  in  many  of  their  supposed  innova- 
tions, the  Puseyites  were  really  only  restoring  what  the 
torpor  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  suffered  to  go  into 
disuse.  They  were  reforming  the  Church  in  the  sense 
sometimes  belonging  to  the  particle  re,  viz.,  retroform- 
ing  it,  moulding  it  back  into  compliance  with  its  origi- 
nal form  and  model.  It  is  true  that  this  effort  for 
quickening  the  Church,  and  for  adorning  her  exterior 
service,  moved  under  the  impulse  of  too  undisguised  a 
sympathy  with  Papal  Rome.  But  there  is  no  great 
reason  to  mind  that  in  our  age  and  our  country.  Pro- 
testant zealotry  may  be  safely  relied  on  in  this  island 
as  a  match  for  Popish  bigotry.  There  will  be  no  love 
lost  between  them  —  be  assured  of  that  —  and  justice 
will  be  done  to  both,  though  neither  should  do  it  to  her 
rival ;  for  philosophy,  which  has  so  long  sought  only 
amusement  in  either,  is  in  these  latter  days  of  growing 
profundityapplying  herself  steadily  to  the  profound  truths 
which  dimly  are  descried  lurking  in  both.  It  is  these 
which  Mr.  Newman  is  likely  to  illuminate,  and  not  the 
faded  forms  of  an  obsolete  ceremonial  that  cannot  now 
be  I'estored  elTectually,  were  it  even  important  that  they 
should.  Strange  it  is,  however,  that  he  should  open  his 
career  by  offering  to  Rome,  as  a  mode  of  homage,  this 
doctrine  of  development,  which  is  the  direct  inversion 
of  her  own.  Rome  founds  herself  upon  the  idea,  that 
to  her,  by  tradition  and  exclusive  privilege,  was  com- 
municated, once  for  all,  the  whole  truth  fromjhe  begin- 
ning.    Mr.  Newman  lays  his  corner-stone  in  the  very 


PROTESTANTISM.  101 

opposite  idea  of  a  gradual  development  given  to  Chris- 
tianity by  the  motion  of  time,  by  experience,  by  ex- 
panding occasions,  and  by  the  progress  of  civilization. 
Is  Newmanism  likely  to  prosper  ?  Let  me  tell  a  little 
anecdote.  Twenty  years  ago,  roaming  one  day  (as  I 
had  so  often  the  honor  to  do)  with  our  immortal  Words- 
worth, 1  took  the  liberty  of  telling  him,  at  a  point  of  our 
walk,  where  nobody  could  possibly  overhear  me,  unless 
it  were  old  Father  Helvellyn,  that  I  feared  his  theolog- 
ical principles  were  not  quite  so  sound  as  his  friends 
would  wish.  They  wanted  repairing  a  little.  But, 
what  was  worse,  I  did  not  see  how  they  coiild  be 
repaired  in  the  particular  case  which  prompted  my  re- 
mark, for  in  that  pkice,  to  repair,  or  in  any  respect  to 
alter,  v/as  to  destroy.  It  was  a  passage  in  the  '  ^j^xcur- 
sion,'  where  the  Solitary  had  described  the  baptismal 
rite  as  washing  away  the  taint  of  original  sin,  and,  in 
fact,  working  the  effect  which  is  called  technically  re- 
generation. In  the  'Excursion'  this  view  was  ad- 
vanced, not  as  the  poet's  separate  opinion,  but  as  the 
avowed  doctrine  of  the  English  Church,  to  which 
Church  Wordsworth  and  myself  yielded  gladly  a  filial 
reverence.  But  loas  this  the  doctrine  of  the  English 
Church  ?  That  I  doubted  — not  that  I  pretended  to  any 
sufficient  means  of  valuing  the  preponderant  opinion 
between  two  opinions  in  the  Church  ;  a  process  far 
more  difficult  than  is  imagined  by  historians,  always  so 
ready  to  tell  us  fluently  what  '  the  nation '  or  '  the 
people'  thought  upon  a  particular  question,  (whilst,  in 
fact,  a  whole  life  might  be  often  spent  vainly  in  col- 
lecting the  popular  opinion)  ;  but,  judging  by  my  own 
casual  experience,  I  fancied  that  a  considerable  majority 


102  PROTESTANTISM. 

in  the  Church  gave  an  interpretation  to  this  Sacra- 
ment ditTering  by  much  from  that  in  the  '  Excursion.' 
Wordsworth  was  startled  and  disturbed  at  hearing  it 
whispered  even  before  Helvellyn,  who  is  old  enough  to 
keep  a  secret,  that  his  divinity  might  possibly  limp  a  little. 
I,  on  my  part,  was  not  sure  that  it  did,  but  I  feared  so ; 
and,  as  there  was  no  chance  that  I  should  be  murdered 
for  speaking  freely,  (though  the  place  was  lonely,  and 
the  evening  getting  dusky,)  I  stood  to  my  disagreeable 
communication  with  the  courage  of  a  martyr.  The 
question  between  us  being  one  of  mere  fact,  (not  what 
ought  to  be  the  doctrine,  but  what  xoas  the  doctrine  of 
our  Church  at  that  time,)  there  was  no  opening  for  any 
discussion  ;  and,  on  Wordsworth's  suggestion,  it  was 
agreed  to  refer  the  point  to  his  learned  brother,  Dr. 
Christopher  Wordsworth,  just  then  meditating  a  visit  to 
his  native  lakes.  That  visit  in  a  short  time  '  came  off,' 
and  then,  without  delay,  our  dispute  'came  on'  for 
judgment.  I  had  no  bets  upon  the  issue  —  one  can't 
bet  with  Wordsworth  —  and  I  don't  know  that  I  should 
have  ventured  to  back  myself  in  a  case  of  that  nature. 
However,  I  felt  a  slight  anxiety  on  the  subject,  which 
was  very  soon  and  kindly  removed  by  Dr.  W'ords- 
worth's  deciding,  '  sans  phrase,'  that  I,  the  original 
mover  of  the  strife,  was  wrong,  wrong  as  wrong  could 
be.  To  this  decision  I  bowed  at  once,  on  a  principle 
of  courtesy.  One  ought  always  to  presume  a  man 
right  within  his  own  profession,  even  if  privately  one 
should  think  him  wrong.  But  I  could  not  think  that  of 
Dr.  Wordsworth.  He  was  a  D.  D. ;  he  was  head  of 
Trinity  College,  which  has  viy  entire  permission  to 
hold  its  head  up  amongst  twenty  and  more  colleges, 


PROTESTANTISM.  103 

as  the  leading  one  in  Cambridge,  (provided  it  can 
obtain  St.  John's  permission),  '  and  which,'  says  Phil., 
'  has  done  more  than  any  other  foundation  in  Europe 
for  the  enlightenment  of  the  world,  and  for  the  over- 
throw of  literary,  philosophical,  and  religious  super- 
stitions.' I  quarrel  not  with  this  bold  assertion,  re- 
membering reverentially  that  Isaac  Barrow,  that  Isaac 
Newton,  that  Richard  Bentley  belonged  to  Trinity,  but 
.  I  wish  to  understand  it.  The  total  pretensions  of  the 
College  can  be  known  only  to  its  members;  and  there- 
fore, Phil,  should  have  explained  himself  more  fully. 
He  can  do  so,  for  Phil,  is  certainly  a  Trinity  man.  If 
the  police  are  in  search  of  him,  they'll  certainly  hear 
of  him  at  Trinity.  Suddenly  it  strikes  me  as  a  dream? 
that  Lord  Bacon  belonged  to  this  College.  Don't  laugh 
at  me,  Phil.,  if  I'm  wrong,  and  still  less  (because  then 
you'll  laugh  even  more  ferociously)  if  I  happen  to  be 
right.  Can  one  remember  everything  ?  Ah !  the 
worlds  of  distracted  facts  that  one  ought  to  remember. 
Would  to  heaven  that  I  remembered  nothing  at  all,  and 
had  nothing  to  remember !  This  thing,  however,  I 
certainly  do  remember,  that  Milton  was  not  of  Trinity, 
nor  Jeremy  Taylor ;  so  don't  think  to  hoax  me  there, 
my  parent!  Dr.  Wordsworth  was,  or  had  been,  an 
examining  chaplain  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
If  Lambeth  could  be  at  fault  on  such  a  question,  then 
it's  of  no  use  going  to  Newcastle  for  coals.  Delphi, 
we  all  know,  and  Jupiter  Ammon  had  vanished.  What 
other  court  of  appeal  was  known  to  man  ?  So  I  sub- 
mitted as  cheerfully  as  if  the  learned  Doctor,  instead  of 
kicking  me  out  of  court,  had  been  handing  me  in. 
Yet,   for  all  that,  as  I   returned    musing    past  Rydal 


104  PROTESTANTISM. 

Water,  I  could  not  help  muttering  to  myself — Ay,  now, 
what  rebellious  thought  was  it  that  I  muttered  ?  You 
fancy,  reader,  that  perhaps  I  said,  '  But  yet,  Doctor,  in 
spite  of  your  wig,  I  am  in  the  right.'  No  ;  you're 
quite  wrong ;  I  said  nothing  of  the  sort.  What  I  did 
mutter  was  this  — '  The  prevailing  doctrine  of  the 
Church  must  be  what  Dr.  Wordsworth  says,  viz.,  that 
baptism  is  regeneration  —  he  cannot  be  mistaken  as  to 
that  —  and  I  have  been  misled  by  the  unfair  proportion 
of  Evangelical  people,  bishops,  and  others,  whom  acci- 
dent has  thrown  in  my  way  at  Barley  Wood  (Hannah 
More's).  These,  doubtless,  form  a  minority  in  the 
Church ;  and  yet,  from  the  strength  of  their  opinions, 
from  their  being  a  moving  party,  as  also  from  their 
being  a  growing  party,  I  prophesy  this  issue,  that  many 
years  will  not  pass  before  this  very  question,  now  slum- 
bering, will  rouse  a  feud  within  the  English  Church- 
There  is  a  quarrel  brewing.  Such  feuds,  long  after 
they  arc  ripe  for  explosion,  sometimes  slumber  on, 
until  accident  kindles  them  into  flame.'  That  accident 
was  furnished  by  the  tracts  of  the  Puseyites,  and  since 
then,  according  to  the  word  which  I  spoke  on  Rydal 
Water,  there  has  been  open  \yar  raging  upon  this  very 
point. 

At  present,  with  even  more  certainty,  I  prophesy  that 
mere  necessity,  a  necessity  arising  out  of  continual  col- 
lisions with  sceptical  philosophy,  will,  in  a  few  years, 
carry  all  churches  enjoying  a  learned  priesthood  into 
the  disputes  connected  with  this  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment. Phil.,  meantime,  is  no  friend  to  that  Newman- 
ian  doctrine  ;  and  in  sect.  31,  j\.  66,  he  thus  describes 
it: — 'According   to   these  writers'   (viz.,   the 'writers 


PROTESTANTISM.  105 

'  who  advocate  the  theory  of  development '),  '  the  pro- 
gressive and  gradual  development  of  religious  truth, 
which  appears  to  us '  {us,  meaning,  I  suppose,  the  OJd- 
mannians,)  '  to  have  been  terminated  by  the  final  reve- 
lation of  the  Gospel,  has  been  going  on  ever  since  the 
foundation  of  the  Church,  is  going  on  still,  and  must 
continue  to  advance.  This  theory  presumes  that  the 
Bible  does  not  contain  a  full -and  final  exposition  of  a 
complete  system  of  religion  ;  that  the  Church  has  de- 
veloped from  the  Scriptures  true  doctrines  not  explicitly 
contained  therein,'  &c.  &c. 

But,  without  meaning  to  undertake  a  defence  of  Mr. 
Newman  (whose  book  I  am  as  yet  too  slenderly  ac- 
quainted with),  may  I  be  allowed,  at  this  point,  to  inter- 
cept a  fallacious  view  of  that  doctrine,  as  though  essen- 
tially it  proclaimed  some  imperfection  in  Christianity. 
The  imperfection  is  in  us,  the  Christians,  not  in  Chris- 
tianity, The  impression  given  by  Phil,  to  the  hasty 
reader  is,  that,  according  to  Newmanism,  the  Scrip- 
tures make  a  good  beginning  to  which  we  ourselves  are 
continually  adding  —  a  solid  foundation,  on  which  we 
ourselves  build  the  superstructure.  Not  so.  In  the 
course  of  a  day  or  a  year,  the  sun  passes  through  a 
vast  variety  of  positions,  aspects,  and  corresponding 
powers,  in  relation  to  ourselves.  Daily  and  annually 
he  is  developed  to  us  —  he  runs  a  cycle  of  development. 
Yet,  after  all,  this  practical  result  does  not  argue  any 
change  or  imperfection,  growth  or  decay,  in  the  sun. 
This  great  orb  is  stationary  as  regards  his  place,  and 
unchanging  as  regards  his  power.  It  is  the  subjective 
change  in  ourselves  that  projects  itself  into  this  endless 
succession   of  phantom   changes  in   the   object.      Not 


106  PROTESTANTISM. 

Otherwise  on  the  scheme  of  development ;  the  Chris- 
tian theory  and  system  are  perfect  from  the  beginning. 
In  itself,  Christianity  changes  not,  neither  waxing  nor 
waning;  but  the  motions  of  time  and  the  evolutions  of 
experience  continually  uncover  new  parts  of  its  station- 
ary disk.  The  orb  grows,  so  far  as  practically  wo  are 
speaking  of  our  own  benefit ;  but  absolutely,  as  regards 
itself,  the  orb,  eternally  the  same,  has  simply  more  or 
fewer  of  its  digits  exposed.  Christianity,  perfect  from  the 
beginning,  had  a  curtain  over  much  of  its  disk,  which 
Time  and  Social  Progress  are  continually  withdrawing. 
This  I  say  not  as  any  deliberate  judgment  on  develop- 
ment, but  merely  as  a  suspending,  or  ad  interim  idea, 
by  way  of  barring  too  summary  an  interdict  against 
the  doctrine  at  this  premature  stage.  Phil.,  however, 
hardens  his  face  against  Newman  and  all  his  works. 
Him  and  them  he  defies  ;  and  would  consign,  perhaps 
secretly,  to  the  care  of  a  well-known  (not  new,  but)  old 
gentleman,  if  only  he  had  any  faith  in  that  old  gentle- 
man's existence.  On  that  point,  he  is  a  fixed  infidel, 
and  quotes  with  applause  the  answer  of  Robinson,  the 
once  celebrated  Baptist  clergyman,  who  being  asked  if 
he  believed  in  the  devil,  replied,  '  Oh,  no;  /,  for  my 
part,  believe  in  God  —  don't  you?  ' 

Phil..,  therefore,  as  we  have  seen,  in  eflfect,  con- 
demns development.  But,  at  p.  33,  when  as  yet  he  is 
not  thinking  of  Mr,  Newman,  he  says, '  If  knowledge 
is  progressive,  the  development  of  Christian  doctrine 
must  be  progressive  likewise.'  I  do  not  see  the  must ; 
but  I  see  the  Newmanian  cloven  foot.  As  to  the  must, 
knowledge  is  certainly  progressive ;  but  the  develop- 
ment of  the  multiplication  table  is  not  therefore  pro- 


PROTESTANTISM.  107 

gressivc,  nor  of  anything  else  that  is  finished  from  the 
beginning.  My  reason,  however,  for  quoting  the  sen- 
tence is,  because  here  we  suddenly  detect  Phil,  in  lay- 
ing down  the  doctrine  which  in  Mr.  Newman  he  had 
regarded  as  heterodox.  Phil,  is  taken  red-hand,  as  the 
English  law  expresses  it,  crimson  with  the  blood  of  his 
offence ;  assuming,  in  fact,  an  original  imperfection 
quoad  the  scire,  though  not  quoad  the  esse  ;  as  to  the 
'  exposition  of  the  system,'  though  not  as  to  the  '  sys- 
tem' of  Christianity.  Mr.  Newman,  after  all,  asserts 
(I  believe)  only  one  mode  of  development  as  applicable 
to  Christianity.  Phil,  having  broke  the  ice,  may  now 
be  willing  to  allow  of  two  developments ;  whilst  I,  that 
am  always  for  going  to  extremes,  should  be  disposed 
to  assert  thi:ee,  viz  : — 

First.  The  Philological  development.  And  this  is 
a  point  on  which  I,  Philo-Phil.  (or,  as  for  brevity  you 
may  call  me,  Phil-Phil.)  shall,  without  wishing  to  do 
so,  vex  Phil.  It's  shocking  that  one  should  vex  the 
author  of  one's  existence,  which  Phil,  certainly  is  in 
relation  to  me,  when  considered  as  Phil-Phil.  Still 
it  is  past  all  denial,  that,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  Scrip- 
tures must  benefit,  like  any  other  book,  by  an  increas- 
ing accuracy  and  compass  of  learning  in  the  exegesis 
applied  to  them.  But  if  all  the  world  denied  this, 
Phil.,  my  parent,  is  the  man  that  cannot;  since  he  it 
is  that  relies  upon  philological  knowledge  as  the  one 
resource  of  Christian  philosophy  in  all  circumstances  of 
difficulty  for  any  of  its  interests,  positive  or  negative. 
Philolosiv,  according  to  Phil.,  is  the  sheet-anchor  of 
Christianity.  Already  it  is  the  author  of  a  Christianity 
more  in  harmony  with  philosophy  ;  and,  as  regards  the 


108  PROTESTANTISM. 

future,  Phil,  it  is  that  charges  Philology  with  the  whole 
service  of  divinity.  Wherever  anything,  being  right, 
needs  to  be  defended  —  wherever  anything,  being 
amiss,  needs  to  be  improved  —  oh  !  what  a  life  he  will 
lead  this  poor  Philology  !  Philology,  with  Phil.,  is  the 
great  benefactress  for  the  past,  and  the  sole  trustee  for 
the  future.  Here,  therefore,  Phil,  is  caught  in  a  fix, 
hahemus  confitentem.  He  denounces  development  when 
dealing  with  the  Newmanites;  he  relies  on  it  when 
vaunting  the  functions  of  Philology  ;  and  the  only  eva- 
sion for  him  would  be  to  distinguish  about  the  modes 
of  development,  were  it  not  that,  by  insinuation,  he  has 
apparently  denied  all  modes. 

Secondly.  There  is  the  Philosophic  development, 
from  the  reaction  upon  the  Bible  of  advancing  know- 
ledge. This  is  a  mode  of  development  continually 
going  on,  and  reversing  the  steps  of  past  human  follies. 
In  every  age,  man  has  imported  his  own  crazes  into 
the  Bible,  fancied  that  he  saw  them  there,  and  then 
d?awn  sanctions  to  his  wickedness  or  absurdity  from 
what  were  nothing  else  than  fictions  of  his  own.  Thus 
did  the  Papists  draw  a  plenary  justification  of  intoler- 
ance, or  even  of  atrocious  persecution,  from  the  evan- 
gelical '  Compel  them  to  come  in  !  '  The  right  of  un- 
limited coercion  was  read  in  those  words.  People, 
again,  that  were  democratically  given,  or  had  a  fancy 
for  treason,  heard  a  trumpet  of  insurrection  in  the 
words  '  To  your  tents,  oh  Israel!''  But  far  beyond 
these  in  multitude  were  those  that  drew  from  the  Bible 
the  most  extravagant  claims  for  kings  and  rulers. 
'  Rebellion  was  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft.'  This  was  a 
jewel  of  a  text ;  it  killed  two  birds  with  one  stone. 


PROTESTANTISM.  109 

Broomsticks  were  proved  out  of  it  most  clearly,  and 
also  the  atrocity  of  representative  government.  What 
a  little  text  to  contain  so  much  !  Look  into  Algernon 
Sidney,  or  into  Locke's  controversy  with  Sir  Robert 
Filmer's  -"  '  Patriarcha,'  or  into  any  books  of  those 
days  on  political  principles,  and  it  will  be  found  that 
Scripture  was  so  used  as  to  form  an  absolute  bar 
against  human  progress.  All  public  benefits  were,  in 
the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  precarious,  as  depend- 
ing upon  prayers  and  entreaties  to  those  who  had  an 
interest  in  refusing  them.  All  improvements  were 
eleemosynary ;  for  the  initial  step  in  all  cases  belonged 
to  the  Crown.  '  The  right  divine  of  kings  to  govern 
wrong '  was  in  those  days  what  many  a  man  would 
have  died  for  —  what  many  a  man  did  die  for  ;  and  all 
in  pure  simplicity  of  heart  —  faithful  to  the  Bible,  but  to 
the  Bible  of  misinterpretation.  They  obeyed  (often  to 
their  own  ruin)  an  order  which  they  had  misread. 
Their  sincerity,  the  disinterestedness  of  their  folly,  is 
evident ;  and  in  that  degree  is  evident  the  opening  for 
Scripture  development.  Nobody  could  better  obey 
Scripture  as  they  had  understood  it.  Change  in  the 
obedience,  there  could  be  none  for  the  better;  it  de- 
manded only  that  there  should  be  a  change  in  the 
interpretation,  and  that  change  would  be  what  is  meant 
by  a  development  of  Scripture.  Two  centuries  of 
enormous  progress  in  the  relations  between  subjects 
and  rulers  have  altered  the  whole  reading.  '  How 
readest  thou?''  was  the  question  of  Christ  himself; 
that  is,  in  what  meaning  dost  thou  read  the  particular 
Scripture  that  applies  to  this  case  ?  All  the  texts  and 
all  the  cases  remain  at  this  hour  just  as  they  were  for 


110  PROTESTANTISM. 

our  ancestors ;  and  our  reverence  for  these  texts  is  as 
absolute  as  theirs ;  but  we,  applying  lights  of  experi- 
ence which  they  had  not,  construe  these  texts  by  a  dif- 
ferent logic.  There  now  is  development  applied  to  the 
Bible  in  one  of  its  many  strata  —  that  stratum  which 
connects  itself  most  with  civil  polity.  Again,  what  a 
development  have  we  made  of.  Christian  truth;  how 
differently  do  we  now  read  our  Bibles  in  relation  to  the 
poor  tenants  of  dungeons  that  once  were  thought,  even 
by  Christian  nations,  to  have  no  rights  at  all  !  —  in  rela- 
tion to  '  all  prisoners  and  captives  ;'  and  in  relation  to 
slaves !  The  New  Testament  had  said  nothing  directly 
upon  the  question  of  slavery  ;  nay,  by  the  misreader  it 
was  rather  supposed  indirectly  to  countenance  that  in- 
stitution. But  mark  —  it  is  Mohammedanism,  having 
little  faith  in  its  own  laws,  that  dares  not  confide  in  its 
children  for  developing  anything,  but  must  tie  them  up 
for  every  contingency  by  the  letter  of  a  rule.  Chris- 
tianity—  how  differently  does  she  proceed  !  She  throws 
herself  broadly  upon  the  pervading  spirit  which  burns 
within  her  morals.  *  Let  them  alone,'  she  says  of  na- 
tions; '  leave  them  to  themselves.  I  have  put  a  new 
law  into  their  hearts ;  and  if  it  is  really  there,  and 
really  cherished,  that  law  will  tell  them  —  will  develop 
for  them  —  what  it  is  that  they  ought  to  do  in  every 
case  as  it  arises,  when  once  its  consequences  are 
comprehended.'  No  need,  therefore,  for  the  New 
Testament  explicitly  to  forbid  slavery ;  silently  and 
implicitly  it  is  forbidden  in  many  passages  of  the  New 
Testament,  an,d  it  is  at  war  with  the  spirit  of  all.  Be- 
sides, the  religion  which  trusts  to  formal  and  literal  rules 
breaks  down  the  very  moment  that  a  new  case  arises 


PROTESTANTISM.  Ill 

not  described  in  the  rules.     Such  a  case  is  virtually 
unprovided  for,  if  it  does  not  answer  to  a  circumstan- 
tial textual  description  ;  whereas  every  case  is  provided 
for,  as  soon  as  its  tendencies  and  its  moral  relations  are 
made  known,  by  a  religion  that  speaks  through  a  spirit- 
ual organ  to  a  spiritual  apprehension  in  man.     Accord- 
ingly, we  find  that,  whenever  a  new  mode  of  intoxica- 
tion is  introduced,  not  depending  upon  grapes,  the  most 
devout  Mussulmans  hold  themselves  absolved  from  the 
restraints  of  the  Koran.     And  so  it  would  have  been 
with  Christians,  if  the  New  Testament  had  laid  down 
literal  prohibitions  of  slavery,  or  of  the  slave  traffic  _ 
Thousands  of  variations  would  have  been  developed  by 
time  which  no  letter  of  Scripture  could  have  been  com- 
prehensive enough  to  reach.     Were  the  domestic  ser- 
vants of  Greece,  the  Srj^g  (thetes),  within  the  descrip- 
tion ?     Were  the  serfs  and  the  ascripti  gleice  of  feudal 
Europe  to  be  accounted  slaves  ?     Or  those  amongst  our 
own  brothers  and  sisters,  that  within  so  short  a  period 
were  born  subterraneously,^'^  in  Scottish  mines,  or  in 
the  English  collieries  of  Cumberland,  and  were  sup- 
posed to  be  ascripti  mctallo,  sold  by  nature  to  the  mine, 
and  indorsed  upon  its  machinery  for  the  whole  term  of 
their  lives  ;  in  whom,  therefore,  it  was  a  treason  to  see 
the  light  of  upper  day  —  would  they,  would  these  i)uor 
Scotch  and    English   Pariahs,  have  stood   within  any 
scriptural  privilege  if  the  New  Testament  had  legisla- 
ted by  name  and  letter  for  this  class  of  doidoi  (slaves)? 
No  attorney  would  have  found   them  entitled  to  plead 
the  benefit  of  the  Bible  statute.     Endless  are  the  varia- 
tions of  the  conditions  that  new  combinations  of  society 
would   bring  forward  ;    endless  would  be   the  virtual 


112  PROTESTANTISM. 

restorations  of  slavery  that  would  take  place  under  a 
Mahometan  literality;  endless  would  be  the  defeats 
that  such  restorations  must  sustain  under  a  Christianity 
relying  on  no  letter,  but  on  the  spirit  of  God's  com- 
mandments, and  that  will  understand  no  equivocations 
with  the  secret  admonitions  of  the  heart.  Meantime, 
this  sort  of  development,  it  may  be  objected,  is  not  a 
light  that  Scripture  throws  out  upon  human  life  so  much 
as  a  light  that  human  life  and  its  development  throw 
back  upon  Scripture.  True  ;  but  then  how  was  it  pos- 
sible that  life  and  the  human  intellect  should  be  carried 
forward  to  such  developments  ?  Solely  through  the 
training  which  both  had  received  under  the  discipline 
of  Christian  truth.  Christianity  utters  some  truth  widely 
applicable  to  society.  This  truth  is  caught  up  by  some 
influential  organ  of  social  life  —  is  expanded  prodigious- 
ly by  human  experience,  and,  when  travelling  back  as 
an  illustrated  or  improved  text  to  the  Bible,  is  found  to 
be  made  up,  in  all  its  details,  of  many  human  develop- 
ments. Does  that  argue  anything  disparaging  to  Chris- 
tianity, as  though  she  contributed  little  and  man  con- 
tributed much?  On  the  contrary,  man  would  have 
contributed  nothing  at  all  but  for  that  nucleus  by  which 
Christianity  started  and  moulded  the  principle.  To 
give  one  instance  —  Public  charity,  when  did  it  com- 
mence ?  —  who  first  thought  of  it  ?  Who  first  noticed 
hunger  and  cold  as  awful  realities  afflicting  poor  women 
and  innocent  children  ?  Who  first  made  a  public  pro- 
vision to  meet  these  evils  ?  —  Constantino  it  was,  the 
first  Christian  that  sat  upon  a  throne.  Had,  then,  rich 
Pagans  before  his  time  no  charity  —  no  pity  ?  —  no 
money  available  for  hopeless  poverty  .?     Not  much  — 


PROTESTANTISM.  113 

very  little,  I  conceive ;  about  so  much  as  Shakspeare 
insinuates  that  there  is  of  milk  in  a  male  tiger.  Think, 
for  instance,  of  that  black-hearted  reprobate,  Cicero, 
the  moralist.  This  moral  knave,  who  wrote  such  beau- 
tiful Ethics,  and  tvas  so  wicked  —  who  spoke  so  charm- 
ingly and  acted  so  horribly  —  mentions,  with  a  petrify- 
ing coolness,  that  he  knew  of  desolate  old  women  in 
Rome  who  passed  three  days  in  succession  without 
tasting  food.  Did  not  the  wretch,  when  thinking  of 
this,  leap  up,  and  tumble  down  stairs  in  his  anxiety  to 
rush  abroad  and  call  a  public  meeting  for  considering 
so  dreadful  a  case  ?  Not  he  ;  the  man  continued  to 
strut  about  his  library,  in  a  huge  toga  as  big  as  the 
Times  newspaper,  singing  out,  '  Oh  !  fortunatam  natam 
me  Consule  Romam  !  '  and  he  mentioned  the  fact  at  all 
only  for  the  sake  of  Natural  Philosophers  or  of  the 
curious  in  old  women.  Charity,  even  in  that  sense, 
had  little  existence  —  nay,  as  a  duty,  it  had  no  place 
or  rubric  in  human  conceptions  before  Christianity. 
Thence  came  the  first  rudiments  of  all  public  relief  to 
starving  men  and  women ;  but  the  idea,  the  principle, 
was  all  that  the  Bible  furnished,  needed  to  furnish,  or 
could  furnish.  The  practical  arrangements,  the  end- 
less details  for  carrying  out  this  Christian  idea  —  these 
were  furnished  by  man ;  and  why  not  ?  This  case 
illustrates  only  one  amongst  innumerable  modes  of  de- 
velopment applicable  to  the  Bible  ;  and  this  power  of 
development,  in  general,  proves  also  one  other  thing  of 
the  last  importance  to  prove,-  viz.  the  power  of  Chris- 
tianity to  work  in  co-operation  with  time  and  social  pro- 
gress ;  to  work  variably  according  to  the  endless  varia- 
tions of  time  and  place  ;  and  that  is  the  exact  shibboleth 
8 


114  PROTESTANTISM. 

of  a  true  and  spiritual  religion  —  for,  on  reviewing  the 
history  of  false  religions,  and  inquiring  what  it  was  that 
ruined  them,  rarelj^  is  it  found  that  any  of  them  per- 
ished by  external  violence.  Even  the  dreadful  fury  of 
the  early  Mahometan  Sultans  in  India,  before  the  house 
of  Timour,  failed  to  crush  the  monstrous  idolatries  of 
the  Hindoos.  All  false  religions  have  perished  by  their 
own  hollowness,  under  that  searching  trial  applied  by 
social  life  and  its  changes,  which  awaits  eveiy  mode  of 
relicrion.  One  after  another  they  have  sunk  away,  as 
by  palsy,  from  new  aspe^cts  of  society  and  new  neces- 
sities of  man  which  they  were  not  able  to  face.  Com- 
mencing in  one  condition  of  society,  in  one  set  of  feel- 
ings, and  in  one  system  of  ideas,  they  sank  uniformly 
under  any  great  change  in  these  elements,  to  which 
they  had  no  natural  power  of  accommodation.  A  false 
religion  furnished  a  key  to  one  subordinate  lock;  but  a 
religion  that  is  true  will  prove  a  master-key  for  all 
locks  alike.  This  transcendental  principle,  by  which 
Christianity  transfers  herself  so  readily  from  climate  to 
climate,"-  from  century  to  century,  from  the  simplicity 
of  shepherds  to  the  utmost  refinement  of  philosophers, 
carries  with  it  a  necessity,  corresponding  to  such  infi- 
nite flexibility  of  endless  development. 


NOTES 


Note  1.    Page  56. 

'  Index  Expurgatorius'  —  A  question  of  some  interest  arises 
npon  the  casuistical  construction  of  this  Index.  We,  that  are 
not  by  name  included,  may  we  consider  ourselves  indirectly 
licensed  ?  Silence,  I  should  think,  gives  consent.  And  if  it 
wasn't  that  the  present  Pope,  being  a  horrid  Radical,  would  be 
sure  to  blackball  7ne  as  an  honest  Tory,  I  would  send  him  a  copy 
of  my  Opera  Omnia,  requesting  his  Holiness  to  say,  by  return 
of  post,  whether  I  ranked  amongst  the  chaif  winnowed  by  St. 
Peter's  flail,  or  had  his  gracious  permission  to  hold  myself 
amongst  the  pure  wheat  gathered  into  the  Vatican  garner. 

Note  2.    Page  58. 

*  Archdeacon  Blackhurne.'  —  He  was  the  author  of  TTie  Con- 
fessional, which  at  one  time  made  a  memorable  ferment  amongst 
all  those  who  loved  as  sons,  or  who  hated  as  nonconformists,  the 
English  Establishment.  This  was  his  most  popular  work,t)ut  he 
wrote  many  others  in  the  same  temper,  that  fill  six  or  seven 
octavos. 

Note  3.     Page  58. 

•  Voltaire.^  — Let  not  the  reader  misunderstand  me  ;  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  clerical  writer  now  before  us  (bishop  or  not 
bishop)  is  more  hostile  to  religion  than  Voltaire,  or  is  hostile  at 
all.     On  the  contrary,  he  is,  perhaps,  profoundly  religious,  and 


116  PROTESTANTISM. 

he  writes  with  neither  levity  nor  insincerity.  But  this  conscien- 
tious spirit,  and  this  piety,  do  but  the  more  call  into  relief  the 
audacity  of  his  free-thinking  —  do  but  the  more  forcibly  illus- 
trate the  prodigious  changes  wrought  by  time,  and  by  the  conta- 
gion from  secular  revolutions,  in  the  spirit  of  religious  philosophy. 

Note  4.     Page  CO. 

^  Sole  sufficiency  of  Scripture.^  —  This  is  much  too  elliptical 
a  way  of  expressing  the  Protestant  meaning.  Sufficiency  for 
what  ?  •  Sufficiency  for  salvation  '  is  the  phrase  of  many,  and  I 
think  elsewhere  of  PhiJ.  But  that  is  objectionable  on  more 
grounds  than  one  ;  it  is  redundant,  and  it  is  aberrant  from 
the  true  point  contemplated.  Sufficiency  for  itself,  without 
alien  helps,  is  the  thing  contemplated.  The  Greek  autarkeia 
(avTaQxiici),  self-sufficiency,  or,  because  that  phrase,  in  English, 
has  received  a  deflexion  towards  a  bad  meaning,  the  word  self- 
sufficingness  might  answer  ;  sufficiency  for  the  exposition  of  its 
own  most  secret  meaning,  out  of  fountains  within  itself ;  needing, 
therefore,  neither  the  supplementary  aids  of  tradition,  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  the  complementary  aids  on  the  other,  (in  the  event 
of  unprovided  cases,  or  of  dilemmas  arising,)  from  the  infallibility 
of  a  living  expoxinder. 

Note  .'S.    Page  64. 

*  The  Romanist.' — What,  amongst  Protestant  sects?  Ay, 
even  so.  It's  Phil.'s  mistake,  not  mine.  He  will  endeavor  to 
doctor  the  case,  by  pleading  that  he  was  speaking  universally  of 
Christian  error;  but  the  position  of  the  clause  forbids  this  plea. 
Not  only  in  relation  to  what  immediately  precedes,  the  passage 
must  be  supposed  to  contemplate  Protesta?it  error  ;  but  the  im- 
mediate inference  from  it,  viz.,  that  '  the  world  may  well  be  ex- 
cused for  doubting  whether  there  is,  after  all,  so  much  to  be 
gained  by  that  liberty  of  private  judgment,  which  is  the  essential 
characteristic  of  Protestantism;  whether  it  be  not,  after  all, 
merely  a  liberty  to  fall  into  error,'  nails  Phil,  to  that  construc- 
tion —  argues  too  strongly  that  it  is  an  oversight  of  indolence. 
Phil. -vms  sleeping  for  the  moment,  which  is  excusable  enough  to- 


NOTES.  117 

wards  the  end  of  a  book,  but  hardly  in  section  I.    P.  S.  —  I  have  - 
since  observed  (which  not  to  have  observed  is  excused,  perhaps, 
by  the  too  complex  machinery  of  hooks  and  eyes  between  the  text 
and  the  notes  involving  a  double  reference  —  first,  to  the  section; 
second,  to  the  particular  clause  of  the  section)  that  Phil,  has  not 
here  committed  an  inadvertency ;  or,  if  he  haa,  is  determined  to 
fight  himself  through  his  inadvertency,  rather  than  break  up  his 
quaternion  of  cases.     '  In  speaking  of  Romanism  as  arising  from 
a  misapplication  of  Protestant  principles ;  we  refer,  not  to  those 
who  were  born,  but  to  those  who  have  become  members  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.'     What  is  the  name  of  those  people?     And 
where  do  they  live  ?    I  have  heard  of  many  who  think  (and  there 
are  cases  in  which  most  of  us,  that  meddle  with  philosophy,  are 
apt  to  think)  occasional  principles  of  Protestantism  available  for 
the  defence  of  certain  Roman  Catholic  mysteries  too  indiscrimi- 
nately assaulted  by  the  Protestant  zealot;  but,  with  this  excep- 
tion, I  am  not  aware  of  any  parties  professing  to  derive  their 
Popish  learnings /rom  Protestantism;  it  is  in  spite  of  Protestant- 
ism, as  seeming  to  them  not  strong  enough,  or  through  principles 
omitted  by  Protestantism,  which  thei'efore  seems  to  thejn  not 
careful  enough  or  not  impartial  enough,  that  Protestants  have 
lapsed  to  Popery.    Protestants  have  certainly  been  known  to  be- 
come Papists,  not  through  Popish  arguments,  but  simply  through 
their  own  Protestant  books  ;  yet  never,  that  I  heard  of,  through 
an  affirmative  process,  as  though  any  Protestant  argument  in- 
volved the  rudiments  of  Popery,  but  by  a  negative  process,  as 
fancying  the  Protestant  reasons,  though  lying  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, not  going  far  enough ;  or,  again,  though  right  partially, 
yet  defective  as  a  whole.     P/ii7.  therefore,  seems  to  me  absolutely 
caught  in  a  sort  of  Furcm  Caudina,  unless  he  has  a  dodge  in 
reserve  to  puzzle  us  all.     In  a  difierent  point,  I,  that  hold  myself 
a  doctor  seraphicus,  and  also  inexpugnabilis  upon  quillets  of  logic, 
justify  Phil.,  whilst  also   I  blame  him.      He  defends  himself 
rightly  for  distinguishing  between  the  Romanist  and  Newmanite 
on  the  one  hand,  between  the  Calvinist  and  the  Evangelican  man 
on  the  other,  though  perhaps  a  young  gentleman,  commencing 
his  studies  on  the  Organon,  will  fancy  that  here  he  has  Phil,  in 
a  trap,  for  these  distinctions,  he  will  say,  do  not  entirely  exclude 


118  PROTESTANTISM. 

each  other  as  they  ought  to  do.  The  class  calling  itself  Evangel- 
ical, for  instance,  may  also  be  Calviuistic  ;  the  Newmanite  is  not, 
f/ierc/ore,  anti-Romanish.  True,  says  Phil.;  I  am  quite  aware 
of  it.  But  to  be  aware  of  an  objection  is  not  to  answer  it.  The 
fact  seems  to  be,  that  the  actual  combinations  of  life,  not  con- 
forming to  the  truth  of  abstractions,  compel  us  to  seeming 
breaches  of  logic.  It  would  be  right  practically  to  d  stinguish 
the  Radical  from  the  Whig  ;  and  yet  it  might  shock  Duns  or 
Lombardus,  the  magister  sententiarum,  when  he  came  to  under- 
stand that  partially  the  principles  of  Radicals  and  Whigs  coin- 
cide. But,  for  all  that,  the  logic  which  distinguishes  them  is 
right ;  and  the  apparent  error  must  be  sought  in  the  fact,  that  all 
cases  (political  or  religi  us)  being  cases  of  life,  are  concretes, 
which  never  conform  to  the  exquisite  truth  of  abstractions. 
Practically,  the  Radical  is  opposed  to  the  Whig,  though  casually 
the  two  are  in  conjunction  continually  ;  for,  as  acting  parti- 
sans, they  work  from  diflerent  centres,  and  linally,/or  diiierent 
results. 

Note  6.     Page  65. 

The  reader  may  imagine  that,  in  thus  abstracting  Calvin's 
epistolary  sentiments..  I  am  a  little  improving  them.  Certainly 
they  would  bear  improvement,  but  that  is  not  my  business. 
What  the  reader  sees  here  is  but  the  result  of  bringing  scattered 
passages  into  closer  juxtaposition;  whilst,  as  to  the  strongest 
(viz.,  the  most  sanguinary)  sentiments  here  ascribed  to  him,  it 
will  be  a  sulBtient  evidence  of  ray  fidelity  to  the  literal  truth,  if 
I  cite  three  separate  sentences.  Writing  to  Parrel,  he  says, 
'  Spero  capitale  saltern  fore  judicium.'  Sentence  of  the  court,  he 
hopes,  will,  at  any  rate,  reach  the  life  of  Servetus.  Die  he  must, 
and  die  he  shall.  But  why  should  he  die  a  cruel  death  ?  '  Psenoe 
vero  atrocitatem  remitti  cupio.'  To  the  same  purpose,  when 
writing  to  Sultzer,  he  expresses  his  satisfaction  in  being  able  to 
assure  him  that  a  principal  civic  officer  of  Geneva  was,  in  this 
case,  entirely  upright,  and  animated  by  the  most  virtuous  senti- 
ments. Indeed  I  what  an  interesting  character  !  and  in  what 
vay  now  might  this  good  man  show  this  beautiful  tenderness  of 
conscience  ?     Why,  by  a  fixed  resolve  that  Servetus  should  not 


NOTES.  119 

in  any  case  escape  the  catastroplie  wliich  I,  John  Calvin,  am 
longing  for,  (' ut  saltern  exitum,  qiieni  optamus,  non  fugiat.') 
Finally,  writing  to  the  same  Sultzer,  he  remarks  that  —  when 
we  see  the  Papists  such  avenging  champions  of  their  own  super- 
stitious fables  as  not  to  filter  in  shedding  innocent  blood,  '  pudeat 
Christianos  magistratus  [as  if  the  Roman  Catholic  magistrates 
were  not  Christians]  in  tuenda  certu  veritate  nihil  prorsus  habere 
animi '  —  '  Christian  magistrates  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  them- 
selves for  manifesting  no  energy  at  all  in  the  vindication  of  truth 
undeniable;'  yet  really  since  these  magistrates  had  at  that  time 
the  full  design,  which  design  not  many  days  after  they  executed, 
of  maintaining  truth  by  fire  and  faggot,  one  does  not  see  the  call 
upon  them  for  blushes  so  very  deep  as  Calvin  requires.  Hands 
so  crimson  with  blood  might  compensate  the  absence  of  crimson 
cheeks. 

Note  7.  Page  72. 
The  method  of  Des  Cartes  was  altogether  separate  and  peculiar 
to  himself;  it  is  a  mere  conjuror's  juggle;  and  yet,  what  is 
strange,  like  some  other  audacious  sophisms,  it  is  capable  of 
being  so  stated  as  most  of  all  to  baffle  the  subtle  dialectician  ; 
and  Kant  himself,  though  not  cheated,  was  never  so  much  per- 
plexed in  his  life  as  in  the  effort  to  make  its  hoUowness  apparent. 

Note  8.  Page  77. 
♦  0fO7TvevnTta.'  — I  must  point  out  to  Phil,  an  oversight  of  his 
as  to  this  word  at  p.  45  ;  he  there  describes  the  doctrine  of  theop- 
neusiia  as  being  that  of  '  plenary  and  verbal  inspiration.'  But 
this  he  cannot  mean,  for  obviously  this  word  theopiieustia  com- 
prehends equally  the  verbal  inspiration  which  he  is  denouncing, 
and  the  inspiration  of  power  or  spiritual  virtue  which  he  is  sub- 
stituting. Neither  Phil.,  nor  any  one  of  his  school,  is  to  be  un- 
derstood as  rejecting  theopneustia,  but  as  rejecting  that  particular 
mode  of  theopneustia  which  appeals  to  the  eye  by  mouldering 
symbols,  in  favor  of  that  other  mode  which  appeals  to  the  heart 
by  incorruptible  radiations  of  inner  truth. 

Note  0.     Pago  84. 
'Integrity   of  the  metaphor.''  —  One  of  the  best  notes  ever 


120  PROTESTANTISM. 

written  by  Warburton  was  in  justification  of  tlie  old  reading,  sea. 
It  was  true,  that  against  a  sea  it  would  be  idle  to  take  arins. 
We,  that  have  lived  since  Warburton's  day,  have  learned  by  the 
solemn  example  of  Mrs.  Partington,  (which,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
none  of  us  will  ever  forget,)  how  useless,  how  vain  it  is  to  take 
up  a  mop  against  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Great  is  the  mop,  great 
is  Mrs.  Partington,  but  greater  is  the  Atlantic.  Yet,  though  all 
arms  must  be  idle  against  the  sea  considered  literally,  and  xara 
Tijv  (favraoiuv  under  that  image,  Warburton  contended  justly 
that  all  images,  much  employed,  evanesce  into  the  ideas  which 
they  represent.  A  sea  of  troubles  comes  to  mean  only  a  muUi- 
tude  of  troubles.  No  image  of  the  sea  is  suggested  ;  and  arms, 
incongruous  in  relation  to  the  literal  sea,  is  not  so  in  relation  to 
a  multitude ;  besides,  that  the  image  arms  itself,  evanesces  for 
the  same  reason  into  resistance.  For  this  one  note,  which  I  cite 
from  boyish  remembrance,  I  have  always  admired  the  subtlety 
of  Warburton. 

Note  10.  Page  84. 
Meantime,  though  using  this  case  as  an  illustration,  I  believe 
that  camel  is,  after  all,  the  true  translation  ;  first,  on  account  of 
the  undoubted  proverb  in  the  East  about  the  elephant  going 
through  the  needle's  eye  ;  the  relation  is  that  of  contrast  as  to 
magnitude ;  and  the  same  relation  holds  as  to  the  camel  and  the 
needle's  eye;  secondly,  because  the  proper  word  for  a  cable,  it 
has  been  alleged,  is  not '  camdus,'  but '  camilus.' 

Note  11.     Page  86. 

I  recollect  no  variation  in  'the  text  of  Scripture  which  makes 
any  startling  change,  even  to  the  amount  of  an  eddy  in  its  own 
circumjacent  waters,  except  that  famous  passage  about  the  three 
witnesses  — '  There  are  three  that  bare  record  in  heaven,'  &c. 
This  has  been  denounced  with  perfect  fury  as  an  interpolation  ; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  sum  up  the  quart  bottles  of  ink,  black  and 
blue,  that  have  been  shed  in  the  dreadful  skirmish.  Person  even, 
the  all-accomplished  Grecian,  in  his  letters  to  Archdeacon  Travis, 
took  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  controversy;  his  wish  was,  that 
men  should  think  of  him  as  a  second  Bentley  tilting  against 


NOTES.  121 

Phalaris;  and  he  stung  like  a  hornet.  To  be  a  Cambridge  man 
in  those  days  was  to  be  a  hater  of  all  Establishments  in  England; 
things  and  persons  were  hated  alike.  I  hope  the  same  thing  may 
not  be  true  at  present.  It  may  chance  that  on  this  subject  Mas- 
ter Person  will  get  stung  through  his  coffin,  before  he  is  many 
years  deader.  However,  if  this  particular  variation  troubles  the 
waters  just  around  itself  (for  it  would  desolate  a  Popish  village 
to  withdraw  its  local  saint),  yet  carrying  one's  eye  from  this 
Epistle  to  the  whole  domains  of  the  New  Testament  —  yet,  look- 
ing away  from  that  defrauded  village  to  universal  Christendom, 
we  must  exclaim  —  What  does  one  miss  ?  Surely  Christendom  is 
not  disturbed  because  a  village  suffers  wrong;  the  sea  is  not 
roused  because  an  eddy  in  a  corner  is  boiling;  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  not  in  danger  because  Mr.  Porson  is  in  a  passion. 

Note  12.  Page  86. 
One  does  not  wish  to  be  tedious ;  or,  if  one  has  a  gift  in  that 
way,  naturally  one  does  not  wish  to  bestow  it  all  upon  a  perfect 
stranger,  as  '  the  reader  '  usually  is,  but  to  reserve  a  part  for  the 
fireside,  and  the  use  of  one's  most  beloved  friends;  else  I  could 
torment  the  reader  by  a  longer  succession  of  numbers,  and  perhaps 
drive  him  to  despair.  But  one  more  of  the  series,  viz.,  No.  6,  as 
a  parting  gage  d'  a?nitie,  he  must  positively  permit  me  to  drop 
into  his  pocket.  Supposing,  then,  that  No.  5  were  surmounted, 
and  that,  supernaturally,  you  knew  the  value  to  a  hair's  breadth 
of  every  separate  word  (or,  perhaps,  composite  phrase  made  up 
from  a  constellation  of  words)  —  ah,  poor  traveller  in  trackless 
forests,  still  you  are  lost  again  —  for,  oftentimes,  and  especially 
in  St.  Paul,  the  words  may  be  known,  their  sense  may  be  known, 
but  their  logical  relation  is  still  doubtful.  The  word  X  and  the 
word  Y  are  separately  clear;  but  has  Y  the  dependency  of  a 
consequence  upon  X,  or  no  dependency  at  all  ?  Is  the  clause 
which  stands  eleventh  in  the  series  a  direct  prolongation  of  that 
which  stands  tenth  .'  or  is  the  tenth  wholly  independent  and  in- 
sulated ?  or  does  it  occupy  the  place  of  a  parenthesis,  so  as  to 
modify  the  ninth  clause  ?  People  that  have  pracised  composition 
as  much,  and  with  as  vigilant  an  eye  as  myself,  know  also,  by 
thousands  of  cases,  how  infinite  is  the  disturbance  caused  in  the 


122  PROTESTANTISM. 

logic  of  a  thought  by  the  mere  position  of  a  woi'd  as  despicable  as 
the  Avord  even.  A  mote,  that  is  itself  invisible,  shall  darken  the 
august  faculty  of  sight  in  a  human  eye  —  the  heavens  shall  be 
hidden  by  a  wretched  atom  that  dares  not  show  itself — and  the 
station  of  a  syllable  shall  cloud  the  judgment  of  a  council.  Nay, 
even  an  ambiguous  emphasis  falling  to  the  right-hand  word,  or 
the  left-hand  word,  shall  confound  a  system. 

Note  13.  •  Page  87. 

See  Mr.  Yates's  '  Annotations  upon  Fellowes's  Kesearches  in 
Anatolia,'  as  one  authority  for  this  singular  phenomenon. 

Note  U.     Page  90. 

'  That  is  the  pri?iciple.'  —  I  am  afraid,  on  reviewing  this  pas- 
sage, that  the  reader  may  still  say,  '  TV/iat  is  the  principle  ? ' 
I  will  add,  therefore,  tlie  shortest  explanation  of  my  meaning. 
If  into  any  Pagan  language  you  had  occasion  to  translate  the 
■word  love,  or  purity,  or  penitence,  &c.,  you  could  not  do  it. 
The  Greek  language  itself,  perhaps  the  finest  (all  things  weighed 
and  valued)  that  man  has  employed,  could  not  do  it.  The  scale 
was  not  so  pitched  as  to  make  the  transfer  possible.  It  was  to 
execute  organ  music  on  a  guitar.  And,  hereafter,  I  will  en- 
deavor to  show  how  scandalous  an  error  has  been  committed  on 
this  subject,  not  by  scholars  only,  but  by  religious  philosophers. 
The  relation  of  Christian  ethics  (which  word  ethics,  however,  is 
itself  most  insufficient)  to  natural  or  universal  ethics  is  a  field 
yet  uncultured  by  a  rational  thought.  The  first  word  of  senso 
has  yet  to  be  spoken.  There  lies  the  difiiculty;  and  the  principle 
which  meets  it  is  this,  that  what  any  one  idea  could  never  efiect 
for  itself  (insulated,  it  must  remain  an  unknown  quality  for  ever), 
the  total  system  of  the  ideas  developed  from  its  centre  would 
effect  for  each  separately.  To  know  the  part,  you  must  first  know 
the  whole,  or  know  it,  at  least,  by  some  outline.  The  idea  of 
purity,  for  instance,  in  its  Christian  altitude,  would  be  utterly 
incomprehensible,  and,  besides,  could  not  sustain  itself  for  a  mo- 
ment if  by  any  glimpse  it  were  approached.  But  when  a  ruin 
was  unfolded  that  had  aficcted  the  "human  race,  and  many  things 


NOTES.  123 

heretofore  unobserved,  because  uncombined,  were  gathered  into  a 
unity  of  evidence  to  that  ruin,  spread  through  innumerable  chan- 
nels, the  great  altitude  would  begin  dimly  to  reveal  itself  by 
means  of  the  mighty  depth  in  correspondence.  One  deep  calleth 
to  another.  One  after  one  the  powers  lodged  in  the  awful  suc- 
cession of  uncoverings  would  react  upon  each  other;  and  thus 
the  feeblest  language  would  be  as  capable  of  receiving  and  re- 
flecting the  system  of  truths  (because  the  system  is  an  arch  that 
supports  itself)  as  the  richest  and  noblest ;  and  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  makes  geometry  careless  of  language.  The  vilest  jar- 
gon that  ever  was  used  by  a  shivering  savage  of  Terra  del  Fuego 
is  as  capable  of  dealing  with  the  sublime  and  eternal  aflections  of 
space  and  quantity,  with  up  and  down,  with  more  and  less,  with 
circle  and  radius,  angle  and  tangent,  as  is  the  golden  language 
of  Athens. 

Note  15.    Page  90. 

•  Art  of  the  decipherer.' —  An  art  which,  in  the  preceding  cen- 
tury, had  been  greatly  improved  by  Wallis,  Savilian  professor  of 
geometry  at  Oxford,  the  improver  of  analytic  mathematics,  and 
the  great  historian  of  algebra.  Algebra  it  was  that  suggested  to 
him  his  exquisite  deciphering  skill,  and  the  parliamentary  war  it 
was  that  furnished  him  with  a  sufficient  field  of  j^i'actice.  The 
King's  private  cabinet  of  papers,  all  written  in  cipher,  and  cap- 
tured in  the  royal  coach  on  the  decisive  day  of  Naseby  (June, 
1615),  was  (I  beheve)  deciphered  by  Wallis,  propria  martc. 

Note  16.    Page  95. 

The  Bible  cosmology  stands  upon  another  footing.  TViat  is 
not  gathered  from  a  casual  expression,  shaped  to  meet  popular 
comprehension,  but  is  delivered  directly,  formally,  and  elabo- 
rately, as  a  natural  preface  to  the  history  of  man  and  his  liabita- 
tion.  Here,  accordingly,  tliere  is  no  instance  of  accommodation 
to  vulgar  ignorance;  and  the  persuasion  gains  ground  continually 
that  the  order  of  succession  in  the  phenomena  of  creation  will  be 
eventually  confirmed  by  scientific  geology,  so  f\ir  as  this  science 
may  ever  succeed  in  unlinking  the  steps  of  tlie  process.  Nothing, 
in  fact,  disturbs  the  grandeur  and  solemnity  of  the  Mosaical  cos- 


124  PROTESTANTISM. 

mogony,  except  (as  usual)  the  ruggedness  of  the  bibliolater.  He, 
finding  the  English  word  day  employed  in  the  measurement  of 
the  intervals,  takes  it  for  granted  that  this  must  mean  a  nychthe- 
meron  of  twenty-four  hours;  imports,  therefore,  into  the  biblical 
text  this  conceit ;  fights  for  his  own  opinion,  as  for  a  revelation 
from  heaven  ;  and  thus  disfigures  the  great  inaugural  chapter  of 
human  history  with  this  single  feature  of  a  fairy-tale,  where 
everything  else  is  told  with  the  most  majestic  simplicity.  But 
this  word,  which  so  ignorantly  he  presumes  to  be  an  ordinary 
human  day,  bears  that  meaning  only  in  common  historical  trans- 
actions between  man  and  man ;  but  never  once  in  the  great 
prophetic  writings,  where  God  comes  forward  as  himself  the 
principal  agent.  It  then  means  always  a  vast  and  mysterious 
duration  —  undetermined,  even  to  this  hour,  in  Daniel.  The 
heptameron  is  not  a  week,  but  a  shadowy  adumbration  of  a  week. 

Note  17.     Page  97., 

'  The  domestic  witch.'  —  It  is  the  common  notion  that  the  su- 
perstition of  the  evil  eye,  so  widely  diffused  in  the  Southern  lands, 
and  in  some,  not  a  slumbering,  but  a  fiercely  operative  super- 
stition, is  unknown  in  England  and  other  Northern  latitudes. 
On  the  contrary,  to  my  thinking,  the  regular  old  vulgar  witch  of 
England  and  Scotland  was  but  an  impersonatrix  of  the  very 
same  superstition.  Virgil  expresses  this  mode  of  sorcery  to  the 
letter,  when  his  shepherd  says  — 

'  Nescio  quis  tenero3  oculus  mihi  fascinat  agnos  f ' 

Precisely  in  that  way  it  was  that  the  British  witch  operated. 
She,  bij  her  eye,  blighted  the  natural  powers  of  growth  and  fer- 
tility. By  the  way,  I  ought  to  mention,  as  a  case  parallel  to  that 
of  the  Bible's  recognising  witchcraft,  and  of  enlightened  nations 
continuing  to  punish  it,  that  St.  Paul  himself,  in  an  equal  degree, 
recognises  the  evil  eye;  that  is,  he  uses  the  idea,  (though  cer- 
tainly not  meaning  to  accredit  such  an  idea,)  as  one  that  briefly 
and  energetically  conveyed  his  meaning  to  those  whom  he  was 
addressing.  '  Oh,  foolish  Galatians,  who  hath  bewitched  you  1  ' 
That  is,  literally,  who  has  fascinated  your  senses  by  the  evil 


NOTES.  125 

eye  ?  For  the  Greek  is,  tis  vmas  ebaskanen  ?  Now  the  word 
ebaskanen  is  a  past  tense  of  the -verb  baskaino,  which  was  the 
technical  term  for  the  action  of  the  evil  eye.  Without  having 
written  a  treatise  on  the  iEolic  digamma,  probably  the  reader  is 
aware  that  F  is  V,  and  that,  in  many  languages,  B  and  V  are 
interchangeable  letters  through  thousands  of  words,  as  the  Italian 
tavola,  from  the  Latin  tabula.  Under  that  little  process  it  was 
that  the  Greek  baskaino  transmigrated  into  the  Latin /ascino; 
so  that  St.  Paul's  word,  in  speaking  to  the  Galatians,  is  the  very 
same  word  as  Virgil's,  in  speaking  of  the  shepherd's  flock  as 
charmed  by  the  evil  eye. 

Note  18.     Page  98. 

I  am  not  referring  to  German  infidels.  Very  pious  commenta- 
tors have  connected  her  with  the  engustrimuthoi  (f)7uoT()i^i;6ot) 
or  ventriloquists. 

Note  19.     Page  99. 

Does  that  argument  not  cover  '  the  New  England  wretches' 
so  unreservedly  denounced  in  a  preceding  paragraph  ?  —  Ed. 

Note  20.     Page  109. 

'Filmer^s  Patriarcha.' — I  mention  the  book  as  the  antagonist, 
and  not  the  man,  because  (according  to  my  impression)  Sir 
Robert  was  dead  when  Locke  was  answering  him. 

Note  21.     Page  111. 

See,  for  some  very  interesting  sketches  of  this  Pariah  popula- 
tion, the  work  (title  I  forget)  of  I\Ir.  Bald,  a  Scottish  engineer, 
well  known  and  esteemed  in  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow.  He  may 
be  relied  on.  What  he  tells  against  Scotland  is  violently  against 
his  own  will,  for  he  is  intensely  national,  of  which  I  will  give  the 
reader  one  instance  that  may  make  him  smile.  Much  of  the 
rich,  unctuous  coal,  from  Northumberland  and  Durham,  gives  a 
deep  ruddy  light,  verging  to  a  blood-red,  and  certainly  is  i-ather 
sullen,  on  a  winter  evening,  to  the  eye.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Scottish  coal  or  most  of  it,  being  far  poorer  as  to  heat,  throws  out 


128  PROTESTANTISM. 

a  very  beautiful  and  animated  scarlet  blaze  ;  upon  which  hint,  Mr. 
Bald,  when  patriotically  distressed  at  not  being  able  to  deny  the 
double  power  of  the  eastern  English  coal,  suddenly  revivifies  his 
Scottisli  heart  that  had  been  chilled,  perhaps,  by  the  Scottish 
coals  in  his  fire-grate,  upon  recurring  to  this  picturesque  differ- 
ence in  the  two  blazes  —  '  Ah  ! '  he  says  gratefully,  '  that  New- 
castle blaze  is  well  enough  for  a  "  gloomy  "  Englishman,  but  it 
wouldn't  do  at  all  for  cheerful  Scotland.' 

Note  22.     Page  114. 

'From  climate  to  climate.' — Sagacious  Mahometans  have 
been  often  scandalized  and  troubled  by  the  secret  misgiving  that, 
after  all,  their  Prophet  must  have  been  an  ignorant  fellow.  It  is 
clear  that  the  case  of  a  cold  climate  had  never  occurred  to  him  ; 
and  even  a  hot  one  had  been  conceived  most  narrowly.  Many 
of  the  Bedouin  Arabs  comj^lain  of  ablutions  not  adapted  to  their 
waterless  condition.  These  evidences  of  oversight  would  have 
been  fatal  to  Islamism,  had  Islamism  produced  a  high  civilization. 


ON  THE    SUPPOSED  SCRIPTURAL  EX- 
PRESSION  FOR  ETERNITY. 

[1852.] 

Forty  years  ago  (or,  in  all  probability,  a  good  deal 
more,  for  we  have  already  completed  thirty-seven 
years  from  Waterloo,  and  my  remembrances  upon  this 
subject  go  back  to  a  period  lying  much  behind  that 
great  era),  I  used  to  be  annoyed  and  irritated  by  the 
false  interpretation  given  to  the  Greek  word  aion,  and 
given  necessarily,  therefore,  to  the  adjective  aionios 
as  its  immediate  derivative.  It  was  not  so  much  the 
falsehood  of  this  interpretation,  as  the  narrowness  of 
that  falsehood,  which  disturbed  me.  There  was  a 
glimmer  of  truth  in  it ;  and  precisely  that  glimmer  it 
was  which  led  the  way  to  a  general  and  obstinate  mis- 
conception of  the  meaning.  The  word  is  remark- 
ably situated.  It  is  a  scriptural  word,  and  it  is  also  a 
Greek  word ;  from  which  the  inevitable  inference  is, 
that  we  must  look  for  it  only  in  the  New  Testament. 
Upon  any  question  arising  of  deep,  aboriginal,  doc- 
trinal truth,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  translations. 
Those  are  but  secondary  questions,  archajological  and 
critical,  upon  which  we  have  a  right  to  consult  the 
Greek  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Septuagint. 

Suffer  me  to  pause  at  this  point  for  the  sake  of  pre- 


128  ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

mising  an  explanatioa  needful  to  the  unlearned  reader. 
As  the  reading  pubhc  and  the  thinking  public  is  every 
year  outgrowing  more  and  more  notoriously  the  mere 
learned  public,  it  becomes  every  year  more  and  more 
the  right  of  the  former  public  to  give  the  law  prefer- 
ably to  the  latter  public,  upon  all  points  which  concern 
its  own  separate  interests.  In  past  generations,  no 
pains  were  taken  to  make  explanations  that  were  not 
called  for  by  the  learned  public.  All  other  readers 
were  ignored.  They  formed  a  mob,  for  whom  no 
provision  was  made.  And  that  many  difficulties  should 
be  left  entirely  unexplained  for  them,  was  superciliously 
assumed  to  be  no  fault  at  all.  And  yet  any  sensible 
man,  let  him  be  as  supercilious  as  he  may,  must  on 
consideration  allow  that  amongst  the  crowd  of  un- 
learned or  half-learned  readers,  who  have  had  neither 
time  nor  opportunities  for  what  is  called  '  erudition'  or 
learned  studies,  there  must  always  lurk  a  proportion  of 
men  that,  by  constitution  of  mind,  and  by  the  bounty 
of  nature,  are  much  better  fitted  for  thinking,  originally 
more  philosophic,  and  are  more  capaciously  endowed, 
than  those  who  are,  by  accident  of  position,  more 
learned.  Sucli  a  natural  superiority  certainly  takes 
precedency  of  a  merely  artificial  superiority ;  and, 
therefore,  it  entitles  those  who  possess  it  to  a  special 
consideration.  Let  there  be  an  audience  gathered 
about  any  book  of  ten  thousand  one  hundred  readers : 
it  might  be  fair  in  these  days  to  assume  that  ten  thou- 
sand would  be  in  a  partial  sense  illiterate,  and  the 
remaining  one  hundred  what  would  be  rigorously 
classed  as  '  learned.'  Now,  on  such  a  distribution  of 
the  readers,  it  would  be  a  matter  of  certainty  that  the 


EXPRESSION    FOR    ETERNITY.  129 

rnost  powerful  intellects  would  lie  amongst  the  illiterate 
ten  thousand,  counting,  probably,  to  fifteen  to  one  as 
against  those  in  the  learned  minority.     The  inference, 
therefore,  would  be,  that,  in  all  equity,  the  interest  of 
the  unlearned  section  claimed  a  priority  of  attention, 
not  merely  as  the  more  numerous  section,  but  also  as, 
by  a  high   probability,  the   more  philosophic.     And  in 
proportion  as   this  unlearned   section  widens   and  ex- 
pands, which  every  year  it  does,  in  that  proportion  the 
obligation  and  cogency  of  this  equity  strengthens.    An 
attention  to  the  unlearned  part  of  an  audience,  which 
fifteen  years  ago  might   have  rested   upon  pure   cour- 
tesy,  now   rests  upon   a   basis  of  absolute  justice.     I 
make   this  preliminary  explanation,   in   order  to  take 
away  the  appearance  of  caprice  from  such  occasional 
pauses  as  I  may  make  for  the  purpose  of  clearing  up 
obscurities  or  difficulties.     Formerly,  in  a  case  of  that 
nature,  the  learned  reader  would  have  told  me  that  I 
was   not  entitled  to  delay  him  by  elucidations  that  in 
his  case  must  be  supposed  to  be  superfluous :  and  in 
such  a  remonstrance  there  would  once  have  been  some 
equity.     The    illiterate   section  of  the    readers    might 
then  be  fairly  assumed  as  present  only  by  accident; 
as  no  abiding  part  of  the  audience  ;  but,  like  the  gen- 
eral  public  in  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
as  present  only  by  sufferance  ;  and  officially  in  any 
records   of    the    house    whatever,    utterly    ignored    as 
existences.     At  present,  half  way  on  our  pilgrimage 
through   the    nineteenth  century,   I   reply  to  such  a 
learned  remonstrant  —  that  it  gives  mc  pain  to  annoy 
him  by  superfluous  explanations,  but  that,  unhappily, 
this  infliction  of  tedium  upon  him  is  inseparable  from 
9 


130  ON   THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

what  has  now  become  a  duty  to  others.  This  being 
said,  I  now  go  on  to  inform  the  illiterate  reader,  that 
the  earliest  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  ever 
made  was  into  Greek.  It  was  undertaken  on  the 
encouragement  of  a  learned  prince,  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delphus,  by  an  association  of  Jewish  emigrants  in 
Alexandria.  It  was,  as  the  event  has  shown  in  very 
many  instances,  an  advantage  of  a  rank  rising  to 
providential,  that  such  a  cosmopolitan  version  of  the 
Hebrew  sacred  writings  should  have  been  made  at  a 
moment  when  a  rare  concurrence  of  circumstances 
happened  to  make  it  possible ;  such  as,  for  example, 
a  king  both  learned  in  his  tastes  and  liberal  in  his  prin- 
ciples of  religious  toleration;  a  language,  viz.,  the 
Greek,  which  had  already  become,  what  for  many 
centuries  it  continued  to  be,  a  common  language  of 
communication  for  the  learned  of  the  whole  oixHueni 
(i.  e.,  in  effect  of  the  civilized  world,  viz.,  Greece,  the 
shores  of  the  Euxine,  the  whole  of  Asia  Minor,  Syria, 
Egypt,  Carthage,  and  all  the  dependencies  of  Car- 
thage, finally,  and  above  all,  Rome,  then  beginning  to 
loom  upon  the  western  horizon),  together  with  all  the 
dependencies  of  Rome,  and,  briefly,  every  state  and 
city  that  adorned  the  imperial  islands  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, or  that  glittered  like  gems  in  that  vast  belt  of 
land,  roundly  speaking,  one  thousand  miles  in  average 
breadth,  and  in  circuit  running  up  to  five  thousand 
miles.  One  thousand  multiplied  into  five  times  one 
thousand,  or,  otherwise  expressed,  a  thousand  thousand 
five  times  repeated,  or  otherwise  a  million  five  times 
repeated,  briefly  a  territory  measuring  five  millions 
of  square  miles,  or  forty-five  time^  the  surface  of  our 


EXPRESSION    FOR    ETERNITY.  131 

two  British  islands  —  such  was  the  boundless  domain 
which  this  extraordinary  act  of  Ptolemy  suddenly 
threw  open  to  the  literature  and  spiritual  revelation 
of  a  little  obscure  race,  nestling  in  a  little  angle  of 
Asia,  scarcely  visible  as  a  fraction  of  Syria,  buried  in 
the  broad  shadows  thrown  out  on  one  side  by  the  great 
and  ancient  settlements  on  the  Nile,  and  on  the  other 
by  the  vast  empire  that  for  thousands  of  years  occu- 
pied the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  In  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye,  at  a  sudden  summons,  as  it  were  from  the 
sounding  of  a  trumpet,  or  the  oriental  call  by  a  clap- 
ping of  hands,  gates  are  thrown  open,  which  have  an 
effect  corresponding  in  grandeur  to  the  effect  that 
would  arise  from  the  opening  of  a  ship  canal  across 
the  Isthmus  of  Daricn,  viz.,  the  introduction  to  each 
other — face  to  face  —  of  two  separate  infinities. 
Such  a  canal  would  suddenly  lay  open  to  each  other 
the  two  great  oceans  of  our  planet,  the  Atlantic  and 
the  Pacific ;  whilst  the  act  of  translating  into  Greek 
and  from  Hebrew,  that  is,  transferring  out  of  a  mys- 
terious cipher  as  little  accessible  as  Sanscrit,  and  which 
never  would  be  more  accessible  through  any  worldly 
attractions  of  alliance  with  power  and  civic  grandeur 
or  commerce,  out  of  this  darkness  into  the  golden 
light  of  a  language  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  hon- 
ored amongst  men,  and  the  most  widely  diffused 
through  a  thousand  years  to  come,  had  the  immeasur- 
able effect  of  throwing  into  the  great  crucible  of 
human  speculation,  even  then  beginning  to  ferment, 
to  boil,  to  overthrow — that  mightiest  of  all  elements 
for  exalting  the  chemistry  of  philosophy  —  grand  and, 
for  the  first  time,  adequate  conceptions  of  the  Deity. 


132  ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

For,  although  it  is  true  that,  until  Elias  should  come  — 
that  is,  until  Christianity  should  have  applied  its  final 
revelation  to  the  completion  of  this  great  idea  —  we 
could  not  possess  it  in  its  total  effulgence,  it  is,  how- 
ever, certain  that  an  immense  advance  was  made,  a 
prodigious  usurpation  across  the  realms  of  chaos,  by 
the  grand  illuminations  of  the  Hebrew  discoveries. 
Too  terrifically  austere  we  must  presume  the  Hebrew 
idea  to  have  been  :  too  undeniably  it  had  not  withdrawn 
the  veil  entirely  which  still  rested  upon  the  Divine 
countenance  ;  so  much  is  involved  in  the  subsequent 
revelations  of  Christianity.  But  still  the  advance  made 
in  reading  aright  the  divine  lineaments  had  been  enor- 
mous. God  was  now  a  holy  spirit  that  could  not  tole- 
rate impurity.  He  was  the  fountain  of  justice,  and 
no  longer  disfigured  by  any  mode  of  sympathy  with 
human  caprice  or  infirmity.  And,  if  a  frown  too 
awful  still  rested  upon  his  face,  making  the  approach 
to  him  too  fearful  for  harmonizing  with  that  perfect 
freedom  and  that  childlike  love  which  God  seeks  in  his 
worshippers,  it  was  yet  made  evident  that  no  step  for 
conciliating  his  favor  did  or  could  lie  through  any  but 
moral  graces. 

Three  centuries  after  this  great  epoch  of  the  publi- 
cation (for  such  it  was)  secured  so  providentially  to 
the  Hebrew  theology,  two  learned  Jews  —  viz.,  .lose- 
phus  and  Philo  Judrous  —  had  occasion  to  seek  a  cos- 
mopolitan utterance  for  that  burden  of  truth  (or  what 
they  regarded  as  truth)  which  oppressed  the  spirit 
within  them.  Once  again  they  found  a  deliverance 
from  the  very  same  freezing  imprisonment  in  an  un- 
known language,  through  the  very  same  magical  key, 


EXPRESSION    FOR    ETERNITY.  133 

viz.,  the  all-pervading  language  of  Greece,  whicli  car- 
ried their  communications  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven, 
and  carried  them  precisely  amongst  the  class  of  men, 
viz.  —  the  enlightened  and  educated  class  —  which 
pre-eminently,  if  not  exclusively,  their  wish  was  to 
reach.  About  one  generation  after  Christ  it  was,  when 
the  utter  prostration,  and,  politically  speaking,  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  Jewish  nation,  threw 
these  two  learned  Jews  upon  this  recourse  to  the 
Greek  language  as  their  final  resource,  in  a  condition 
otherwise  of  absolute  hopelessness.  Pretty  nearly 
three  centuries  before  Christ  it  was  (two  hundred  and 
eighty-four  years,  according  to  the  common  reckon- 
ing), when  the  first  act  of  communication  took  place 
between  the  sealed-up  literature  of  Palestine  and  the 
Greek  catholic  interpretation.  Altogether,  we  may 
say  that  three  hundred  and  twenty  years,  or  some- 
where about  ten  generations  of  men,  divided  these 
two  memorable  acts  of  intei-communication.  Such  a 
space  of  time  allows  a  large  range  of  influence  and  of 
silent,  unconscious  operation  to  the  vast  and  potent 
ideas  that  brooded  over  this  awful  Hebrew  literature. 
Too  little  weight  has  been  allowed  to  the  probable  con- 
tagiousness, and  to  the  preternatural  shock,  of  such  a 
new  and  strange  philosophy,  acting  upon  the  jaded  and 
exhausted  intellect  of  the  Grecian  race.  We  must 
remember,  that  precisely  this  particular  range  of  time 
was  that  in  which  the  Greek  systems  of  philosophy, 
having  thoroughly  completed  their  evolution,  had  suf- 
fered something  of  a  collapse  ;  and,  having  exhausted 
their  creative  energies,  began  to  gratify  the  cravings 
for  novelty  by  remodclliifgs  of  old   forms.     It  is  re- 


134  ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

markable,  indeed,  that  this  very  city  of  Alexandria 
founded  and  matured  this  new  principle  of  remodelling 
applied  to  poetry  not  less  than  to  philosophy  and  criti- 
cism. And,  considering  the  activity  of  this  great  com- 
mercial city  and  port,  which  was  meant  to  act,  and  did 
act,  as  a  centre  of  communication  between  the  East 
and  the  West,  it  is  probable  that  a  far  greater  eflect  was 
produced  by  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Jewish  Scrip- 
tures, in  the  way  of  preparing  the  mind  of  nations  for 
the  apprehension  of  Christianity,  than  has  ever  been 
distinctly  recognised.  The  silent  destruction  of  books 
in  those  centuries  has  robbed  us  of  all  means  for  tracing 
innumerable  revolutions,  that  nevertheless,  by  the  evi- 
dence of  results,  must  have  existed.  Taken,  however, 
with  or  without  this  additional  result,  the  translation  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  in  their  most  important  portions 
must  be  ranked  amongst  what  are  called  '  providential' 
events.  Such  a  king  —  a  kin";  whose  father  had  been 
a  personal  friend  of  Alexander,  the  mighty  civilizing 
conqueror,  and  had  shared  in  the  liberalization  con- 
nected with  his  vast  revolutionary  projects  for  extend- 
ing a  higher  civilization  over  the  globe,  such  a  king, 
conversing  with  such  a  language,  having  advantages 
so  absolutely  unrivalled,  and  again  this  king  and  this 
language  concurring  with  a  treasure  so  supernatural  of 
spiritual  wisdom  as  the  subject  of  their  ministrations, 
and  all  three  concurring  with  political  events  sq  auspi- 
cious^^ the  founding  of  a  new  and  mighty  metropolis 
in  Egypt,  and  the  silent  advance  to  supreme  power 
amongst  men  of  a  new  empire,  martial  beyond  all 
precedent  as  regarded  means,  but  not  as  regarded  ends 
—  working  in  all  things  towards  the  unity  of  civiliza- 


EXPRESSION    FOR   ETERNITY.  135 

tiorl  and  the  unity  of  law,  so  that  any  new  impulse,  as, 
for  instance,  impulse  of  a  new  religion,  was  destined 
to  find  new  facilities  for  its  own  propagation,  resem- 
bling electric  conductors,  underthe  unity  of  government 
and  of  law  —  concurrences  like  these,  so  many  and  so 
strange,  justly  impress  upon  this  translation,  the  most 
memorable,  because  the  most  influential  of  all  that 
have  ever  been  accomplished,  a  character  of  grandeur 
that  place  it  on  the  same  level  of  interest  as  the  build- 
ing of  the  first  or  second  temple  at  Jerusalem. 

There  is  a  Greek  legend  which  openly  ascribes  to 
this  translation  all  the  characters  of  a  miracle.  But, 
as  usually  happens,  this  vulgarizing  form  of  the  mira- 
culous is  far  less  impressive  than  the  plain  history 
itself,  unfolding  its  stages  with  the  most  unpretending 
historical  fidelity.  Even  the  Greek  language,  on 
which,  as  the  natural  language  of  the  new  Greek 
dynasty  in  Egypt,  the  duty  of  the  translation  devolved, 
enjoyed  a  double  advantage  :  1st,  as  being  the  only 
language  then  spoken  upon  earth  that  could  diffuse  a 
book  over  every  part  of  the  civilized  earth  ;  2dly,  as 
being  a  language  of  unparalleled  power  and  compass 
for  expressing  and  reproducing  effectually  all  ideas, 
however  alien  and  novel.  Even  the  city,  again,  in 
which  this  translation  was  accomplished,  had  a  double 
dowery  of  advantages  towards  such  a  labor,  not  only 
as  enjoying  a  large  literary  society,  and,  in  particular, 
a  large  Jewish  society,  together  with  unusual  provision 
in  the  shape  of  libraries,  on  a  scale  probably  at  that 
time  unprecedented,  but  also  as  having  the  most  exten- 
sive machinery  then  known  to  human  experience  for 
publishing,  that  is,  for  transmitting  to  foreign  capitals 


136  ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

all  books  in  the  readiest  and  the  cheapest  fashion,  by 
means  of  its  prodigious  shipping. 

Having  thus  indicated  to  the  unlearned  reader  the 
particular  natpre  of  that  interest  which  invests  this 
earliest  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  viz.,  that 
in  fact  this  translation  was  the  earliest  publication  to 
the  human  race  of  a  revelation  which  had  previously- 
been  locked  up  in  a  language  destined,  as  surely  as 
the  Welsh  language  or  the  Gtelic,  to  eternai  obscurity 
amongst  men,  I  go  on  to  mention  that  the  learned 
Jews  selected  for  this  weighty  labor  happened  to  be  in 
number  seventy-two  ;  but,  as  the  Jews  systematically 
reject  fractions  in  such  cases  (whence  it  is  that  always, 
in  order  to  express  the  period  of  six  weeks,  they  say 
forty  days,  and  not,  as  strictly  they  should,  forty-two 
days),  popularly,  the  translators  were  called  'the 
seventy,'  for  which  the  Latin  word  is  septuaginta. 
And  thus  in  after  ages  the  translators  were  usually 
indicated  as  '  The  LXX,'  or,  if  the  work  and  not  the 
workmen  should  be  noticed,  it  was  cited  as  The  Sep- 
tuagint.  In  fact,  this  earliest  of  Scriptural  versions, 
viz.,  into  Greek,  is  by  much  the  most  famous ;  or,  if 
any  other  approaches  it  in  notoriety,  it  is  the  Latin 
translation  by  St.  Jerome,  which,  in  this  one  point, 
enjoys  even  a  superior  importance,  that  in  the  Church 
of  Rome  it  is  the  authorized  translation.  Evidently, 
in  every  church,  it  must  be  a  matter  of  primary  im- 
portance to  assign  the  particular  version  to  which  that 
church  appeals,  and  by  which,  in  any  controversy 
arising,  that  church  consents  to  be  governed.  Now, 
the  Jerome  version  fulfils  this  function  for  the  Romish 
Church ;  and  accordingly,  in  the  sense  of  being  pub- 


EXPRESSION  FOR  ETERNITY.  137 

lishcd  (vulgafa),  or  publicly  authorized  by  that  church, 
it  is  commonly  called  The  Vulgate. 

But,  in  a  large  polemic  question,  unless,  like  the 
Romish  church,  we  uphold  a  secondary  inspiration  as 
having  secured  a  special  privileged  translation  from 
the  possibility  of  error,  vvc  cannot  refuse  an  appeal  to 
the  Hebrew  text  for  the  Old  Testament,  or  to  the 
Greek  text  for  the  New.  The  word  aeonios  [aivmog), 
as  purely  Grecian,  could  not  connect  itself  with  the 
Old  Testament,  unless  it  were  through  the  Septuagint 
translation  into  Greek.  Now,  with  that  version,  in 
any  case  of  controversy,  none  of  us,  Protestants  alike 
or  Roman  Catholics,  have  anything  whatever  to  do. 
Controversially,  we  can  be  concerned  only  with  the 
original  language  of  the  Scriptures,  with  its  actual 
verbal  expressions  textually  produced.  To  be  liable, 
therefore,  to  such  a  textual  citation,  any  Greek  word 
must  belong  to  the  Neio  Testament.  Because,  though 
the  word  might  happen  to  occur  in  the  Septuagint,  yet, 
since  that  is  merely  a  translation,  for  any  of  us  who 
occupy  a  conti;oversial  place,  that  is,  who  are  bound 
by  the  responsibilities,  or  who  claim  the  strict  privi- 
leges of  controversy,  the  Septuagint  has  no  virtual 
existence.  We  should  not  be  at  liberty  to  allege  the 
Septuagint  as  any  authority,  if  it  liappened  to  coun- 
tenance our  own  views;  and,  consequently,  we  could 
not  be  called  on  to  recognise  the  Septuagint  in  any 
case  where  it  should  happen  to  be  against  us.  I  make 
this  preliminary  caveat,  as  not  caring  whether  the 
word  aeonios  does  or  does  not  occur  in  the  Septuagint. 
Either  way,  the  reader  understands  that  I  disown  the 
authority  of  that  version   as  in  any  degree  afiecting 


138  ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

myself.  The  word  which,  forty  years  ago,  moved  my 
disgust  by  its  servile  misinterpretation,  was  a  word 
proper  to  the  New  Testament ;  and  any  sense  which  it 
may  have  received  from  an  Alexandrian  Jew  in  the 
third  century  before  Christ,  is  no  more  relevant  to  any 
criticism  that  I  am  now  going  to  suggest,  than  is  the 
classical  use  of  the  word  aeon  (aicu))  familiar  to  the 
learned  in  Sophocles  or  Euripides. 

The  reason  which  gives  to  this  word  aeonian  what  I 
do  not  scruple  to  call  a  dreadful  importance,  is  the 
same  reason,  and  no  other,  which  prompted  the  dis- 
honesty concerned  in  the  ordinary  interpretation  of 
this  word.  The  word  happened  to  connect  itself — 
but  that  was  no  practical  concern  of  mine  ;  me  it  had 
not  biassed  in  the  one  direction,  nor  should  it  have 
biassed  any  just  critic  in  the  counter  direction  —  hap- 
pened, I  say,  to  connect  itself  with  the  ancient  dispute 
upon  the  duration  of  future  punishments.  What  was 
meant  by  the  aeonian  punishments  in  the  next  world  } 
Was  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  eternal^  or  was- it 
not }  I,  for  my  part,  meddled  not,  nor  upon  any  con- 
sideration could  have  been  tempted  to  meddle,  with  a 
speculation  repellent  alike  by  the  horror  and  by  the 
hopeless  mystery  which  invest  it.  Secrets  of  the 
prison-house,  so  afflicting  to  contemplate  steadily,  and 
so  hopeless  of  solution,  there  could  be  no  proper 
motive  for  investigating,  unless  the  investigation  prom- 
ised a  great  deal  more  than  it  could  ever  accomplish  ; 
and  my  own  feeling  as  to  all  such  problems  is,  that 
they  vulgarize  what,  left  to  itself,  would  take  its  natural 
station  amongst  the  freezing  horrors  that  Shakspeare 
dismisses  with  so  potent  an  expression  of  awe,  in  a 


EXPRESSION  FOR  ETERNITY.  139 

well-known  scene  of  '  Measure  for  Measure.'  I  reite- 
rate my  protest  against  being  in  any  way  decoyed  into 
the  controversy.  Perhaps  I  may  have  a  strong  opinion 
upon  the  subject.  But,  anticipating  the  coarse  discus- 
sions into  which  the  slightest  entertainment  of  such  a 
question  would  be  every  moment  approaching,  once  for 
all,  out  of  reverential  regard  for  the  dignitv  of  human 
nature,  I  beg  permission  to  decline  the  controversy 
altogether. 

But  does  this  declinature  involve  any  countenance  to 
a  certain  argument  which  I  began  by  rejecting  as 
abominable  ?  Most  certainly  not.  That  argument 
runs  thus  —  that  the  ordinary  construction  of  the  term 
aeonian,  as  equivalent  to  everlasting,  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  given  up  when  associated  with  penal  misery, 
because  in  that  case,  and  by  the  very  same  act,  the 
idea  of  eternity  must  be  abandoned  as  applicable  to 
the  counter-bliss  of  Paradise.  Torment  and  blessed- 
ness, it  was  argued,  punishment  and  beatification,  stood 
upon  the  same  level ;  the  same  word  it  was,  the  word 
aeoman,  which  qualified  the  duration  of  either;  and, 
if  eternity  in  the  most  rigorous  acceptation  fell  away 
from  the  one  idea,  it  must  equally  fall  away  from  the 
other.  Well ;  be  it  so.  But  that  would  not  settle  the 
question.  It  might  be  very  painful  to  renounce  a 
long-cherished  anticipation  ;  but  the  necessity  of  doing 
so  could  not  be  received  as  a  sufficient  reason  for 
adhering  to  the  old  unconditional  use  of  the  word 
aeonian.  The  argument  is  —  that  we  must  retain  the 
old  sense  of  eternal,  because  else  we  lose  upon  one 
scale  what  we  had  gained  upon  the  other.  But  what 
then  ?  would  be  the  reasonable  man's  retort.     We  are 


140  ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

not  to  accept  or  to  reject  a  new  construction  (if  other- 
wise the  more  colorable)  of  the  word  aeonian,  simply 
because  the  consequences  might  seem  such  as  upon 
the  whole  to  displease  us.  We  may  gain  nothing;  for 
by  the  new  interpretation  our  loss  may  balance  our 
gain ;  and  we  may  prefer  the  old  arrangement.  But 
how  monstrous  is  all  this!  We  are  not  summoned  as 
to  a  choice  of  two  different  arrangements  that  may 
suit  difTerent  tastes,  but  to  a  grave  question  as  to  what 
is  the  sense  and  operation  of  the  word  aeonian.  Let 
the  limitation  of  the  word  disturb  our  previous  esti- 
mate of  Paradise,  grant  that  it  so  disturbs  that  estimate, 
not  the  less  all  such  consequences  leave  the  dispute 
exactly  where  it  was ;  and  if  a  balance  of  reason  can 
be  found  for  limiting  the  extent  of  the  word  aeonian, 
it  will  not  be  the  less  true  because  it  may  happen  to 
disturb  a  crotchet  of  our  own. 

Meantime,  all  this  speculation,  first  and  last,  is  pure 
nonsense.  Aeonian  does  not  mean  eternal ;  neither 
does  it  mean  of  limited  duration  ;  nor  would  the  un- 
settling of  aeonian  in  its  old  use,  as  applied  to  punish- 
ment, to  torment,  to  misery,  &c.,  carry  with  it  any 
necessary  unsettling  of  the  idea  in  its  application  to 
the  beatitudes  of  Paradise.  Pause,  reader;  and  thou, 
my  favored  and  privileged  reader,  that  boastest  thyself 
to  be  unlearned,  pause  doubly  whilst  I  communicate 
my  views  as  to  this  remarkable  word. 

What  is  an  aeon  7  In  the  use  and  acceptation  of  the 
Apocalypse,  it  is  evidently  this,  viz.,  the  duration  or 
cycle  of  existence  which  belongs  to  any  object,  not 
individually  for  itself,  but  universally  in  right  of  its 
genus.     Kant,  for  instance,  in  a  little  paper  which  I 


EXPRESSION  FOR  ETERNITY.  141 

once  translated,  proposed  and  debated  the  question  as 
to  the  age  of  our  planet  the  Earth.  What  did  he 
mean  ?  Was  he  to  be  understood  as  asking  whether 
the  Earth  were  half  a  million,  two  millions,  or  three 
millions  of  years  old  ?  Not  at  all.  The  probabilities 
certainly  lean,  one  and  all,  to  the  assignment  of  an 
antiquity  greater  by  many  thousands  of  times  than  that 
which  we  have  most  idly  supposed  ourselves  to  extract 
from  Scripture,  which  assuredly  never  meant  to  ap- 
proach a  question  so  profoundly  irrelevant  to  the  great 
purposes  of  Scripture  as  any  geological  speculation 
■whatsoever.  But  this  was  not  within  the  field  of  Kant's 
inquiry.  What  he  wished  to  know  was  simply  the 
exact  stage  in  the  whole  course  of  her  development 
which  the  Earth  at  present  occupies.  Is  she  still  in 
her  infancy,  for  example,  or  in  a  stage  corresponding 
to  middle  age,  or  in  a  stage  approaching  to  superan- 
nuation ?  The  idea  of  Kant  presupposed  a  certain 
average  duration  as  belonging  to  a  planet  of  our  par- 
ticular system  ;  and  supposing  this  known,  or  discov- 
erable, and  that  a  certain  assignable  development 
belonged  to  a  planet  so  circumstanced  as  ours,  then  in 
what  particular  stage  of  that  development  may  wc,  the 
tenants  of  this  respectable  little  planet  Tellus,  reason- 
ably be  conceived  to  stand  ? 

Man,  again,  has  a  certain  aeonian  life ;  possibly 
ranging  somewhere  about  the  period  of  seventy  years 
assigned  in  the  Psalms.  That  is,  in  a  state  as  highly 
improved  as  human  infirmity  and  the  errors  of  the 
earth  herself,  together  with  the  diseases  incident  to  our 
atmosphere,  &c.,  could  be  supposed  to  allow,  possibly 
the  human  race  might  average  seventy  years  for  each 


142         ON  THE  SUPPOSED  SCRIPTURAL 

individual.  This  period  would  in  that  case  represent 
the  '  aeo7i '  of  the  individual  Tellurian  ;  but  the  '  aeon'' 
of  the  Tellurian  race  would  probably  amount  to  many 
millions  of  our  earthly  years;  and  it  would  remain  an 
unfathomable  mystery,  deriving  no  light  at  all  from 
the  septuagenarian  '■aeon''  of  the  individual;  though 
between  the  two  aeons  I  have  no  doubt  that  some 
secret  link  of  connection  does  and  must  subsist,  how- 
ever undiscoverable  by  human  sagacity. 

The  crow,  the  deer,  the  eagle,  &c.,  are  all  supposed 
to  be  long-lived.  Some  people  have  fancied  that  in 
their  normal  state  they  tended  to  a  period  of  two* 
centuries.  I  myself  know  nothing  certain  for  or 
against  this  belief;  but,  supposing  the  case  to  be  as 
it  is  represented,  then  this  would  be  the  aeonian  period 
of  these  animals,  considered  as  individuals.  Among 
trees,  in  like  manner,  the  oak,  the  cedar,  the  yew,  are 
notoriously  of  very  slow  growth,  and  their  aeonian 
period  is  unusually  long  as  regards  the  individual. 
What  may  be  the  aeon  of  the  whole  species  is  utterly 

*  I  have  heard  the  same  normal  duration  ascribed  to  the  tor- 
toise, and  one  case  became  imperfectly  known  to  myself  per- 
sonally. Somewhere  I  may  have  mentioned  the  case  in  print. 
These,  at  any  rate,  are  the  facts  of  the  case  :  A  lady  (by  birth  a 
Cowper,  of  the  whig  family,  and  cousin  to  the  poet  Cowper  ; 
and,  equally  with  him,  related  to  Dr.  Madan,  bishop  of  Peter- 
borough), in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  mentioned  to  me 
that,  in  the  palace  at  Peterborough,  she  had  for  years  known  as 
a  pet  of  the  household  a  venerable  tortoise,  who  bore  some  in- 
scription on  his  shell  indicating  that,  from  1G38  to  1643,  he  had 
belono'ed  to  Archbishop  Laud,  who  (if  I  am  not  mistaken)  held 
the  bishopric  of  Peterborough  before  he  was  translated  to  Lou- 
don, and  finally  to  Canterbury. 


EXPRESSION    FOR    ETERNITY.  143 

unknown.  Amongst  birds,  one  species  at  least  has 
become  extinct  in  our  own  generation  :  its  aeon  was 
accomplished.  So  of  all  tb.e  fossil  species  in  zoology, 
which  Palaeontology  has  revealed.  Nothing,  in  short, 
throughout  universal  nature,  can  for  a  moment  be  con- 
ceived to  have  been  resigned  to  accident  for  its  normal 
aeon.  All  periods  and  dates  of  this  order  belong  to 
the  certainties  of  nature,  but  also,  at  the  same  time,  to 
the  mysteries  of  Providence.  Throughout  the  Pro- 
phets, we  are  uniformly  taught  that  nothing  is  more 
below  the  grandeur  of  Heaven  than  to  assign  earthly 
dates  in  fixing  either  the  revolutions  or  the  duration  of 
great  events  such  as  prophecy  would  condescend  to 
notice.  A  day  has  a  prophetic  meaning,  but  what  sort 
of  day  ?  A  mysterious  expression  for  a  time  which 
has  no  resemblance  to  a  natural  day  —  sometimes  com- 
prehending long  successions  of  centuries,  and  altering 
its  meaning  according  to  the  object  concerned.  'A 
time,' and  'times,'  or  '  half  a  time'  —  'an  aeon,'  or 
^  aeons  of  aeons''  —  and  other  variations  of  this  pro- 
phetic language  (so  full  of  dreadful  meaning,  but  also 
of  doubt  and  perplexity),  are  all  significant.  The 
peculiar  grandeur  of  such  expressions  lies  partly  in  the 
dimness  of  the  approximation  to  any  attempt  at  settling 
their  limits,  and  still  more  in  this,  that  the  conventional 
character,  and  consequent  meanness  of  ordinary  human 
dates,  are  abandoned  in  the  celestial  chronologies. 
Hours  and  days,  or  lunations  and  months,  have  no  trufe 
or  philosophic  relation  to  the  origin,  or  duration,  or 
periods  of  return  belonging  to  great  events,  or  revolu- 
tionary agencies,  or  vast  national  crimes ;  but  the 
normal  period  and  duration  of  all  acts  whatever,  the 


144  ON    THE    SUPPOSED    SCRIPTURAL 

time  of  their  emergence,  of  their  agency,  or  their 
reagency,  fall  into  harmony  with  the  secret  proportions 
of  a  heavenly  scale,  when  they  belong  by  mere  neces- 
sity of  their  own  internal  constitution  to  the  vital 
though  hidden  motions  that  are  at  work  in  their  own 
life  and  manifestation.  Under  the  old  and  ordinary 
view  of  the  apocalyptic  aeon,  which  supposed  it  always 
to  mean  the  same  period  of  time  —  mysterious,  indeed, 
and  uncertain,  as  regards  our  knowledge,  but  fixed  and 
rigorously  certain  in  the  secret  counsels  of  God  —  it 
was  presumed  that  this  period,  if  it  lost  its  character  of 
infinity  when  applied  to  evil,  to  criminality,  or  to  pun- 
ishment, must  lose  it  by  a  corresponding  necessity 
equally  when  applied  to  happiness  and  the  golden 
aspects  of  hope.  But,  on  the  contrary,  every  object 
vi'hatsoever,  every  mode  of  existence,  has  its  own 
separate  and  independent  aeon.  The  most  thoughtless 
person  must  be  satisfied,  on  reflection,  even  apart  from 
the  express  commentary  upon  this  idea  furnished  by 
the  Apocalypse,  that  every  life  and  mode  of  being 
must  have  hidden  within  itself  the  secret  why  of  its 
duration.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  of  any  duration 
whatever  that  it  is  determined  capriciously.  Always 
it  rests  upon  some  ground,  ancient  as  light  and  dark- 
ness, though  undiscoverable  by  man.  This  only  is 
discoverable,  as  a  general  tendency,  that  the  aeon,  or 
generic  period  of  evil,  is  constantly  towards  a  fugitive 
duration.  The  aeon,  it  is  alleged,  must  always  express 
the  same  idea, .whatever  that  may  be ;  if  it  is  less  than 
eternity  for  the  evil  cases,  then  it  must  be  less  for  the 
good  ones.  Doubtless  the  idea  of  an  aeon  is  in  one 
sense   always   uniform,  always  the  same,  viz.,  as  a 


EXPRESSION    FOR    ETERNITY.  145 

tenth  or  a  twelfth  is  always  the  same.  Arithmetic 
couhl  not  exist  if  any  caprice  or  variation  affected 
these  ideas  —  a  tenth  is  always  more  than  an  eleventh, 
always  less  than  a  ninth.  But  this  uniformity  of  ratio 
and  proportion  does  not  hinder  but  that  a  tenth  may 
now  represent  a  guinea,  and  next  moment  represent 
a  thousand  guineas.  The  exact  amount  of  the  dura- 
tion expressed  by  an  aeon  depends  altogether  upon 
the  particular  subject  which  yields  the  aeon.  It  is,  as 
I  have  said,  a  radix  ;  and,  like  an  algebraic  square-root 
or  cube-root,  though  governed  by  the  most  rigorous 
laws  of  limitation,  it  must  vary  in  obedience  to  the 
nature  of  the  particular  subject  whose  radix  it  forms. 

Reader,  I  take  my  leave.  I  have  been  too  loitering. 
I  know  it,  and  will  make  such  efforts  in  future  to  cul- 
tivate the  sternest  brevity  as  nervous  distress  will  allow. 
Meantime,  as  the  upshot  of  my  speculation,  accept 
these  three  propositions  :  —       • 

A.  That  man  (which  is  in  effect  every  mtxn  hitherto,) 
"who  allows  himself  to  infer  the  eternity  of  evil  from 
the  counter  eternity  of  good,  builds  upon  the  mistake 
of  assigning  a  stationary  and  mechanic  value  to  the 
idea  of  an  aeon ;  whereas  the  very  purpose  of  Scrip- 
ture in  using  this  word  was  to  evade  such  a  value. 
The  word  is  always  varying,  for  the  very  purpose  of 
keeping  it  faithful  to  a  spiritual  identity.  The  period 
or  duration  of  every  object  would  be  an  essentially 
variable  quantity,  were  it  not  mysteriously  commen- 
surate to  the  inner  nature  of  that  object  as  laid  open  to 
the  eyes  of  God.  And  thus  it  happens,  that  every- 
thing in  this  world,  possibly  without  a  solitary  excep- 
10 


146  SCRIPTURAL    EXPRESSION    FOR    ETERNITY. 

tion,  has  its  own  separate  aeon :  how  many  entities,  so 
many  aeons. 

B.  But  if  it  be  an  excess  of  blindness  which  can 
overlook  the  aeonian  differences  amongst  even  neutral 
entities,  much  deeper  is  that  blindness  which  overlooks 
the  separate  tendencies  of  things  evil  and  things  good. 
Naturally,  all  evil  is  fugitive  and  allied  to  death. 

C.  I  separately,  speaking  for  myself  only,  profound- 
ly believe  that  the  Scriptures  ascribe  absolute  and 
metaphysical  eternity  to  one  sole  Being,  viz.,  to  God  ; 
and  derivatively  to  all  others  according  to  the  interest 
which  they  can  plead  in  God's  favor.  Having  anchor- 
age in  God,  innumerable  entities  may  possibly  be 
admitted  to  a  participation  in  divine  aeon.  But  what 
interest  in  the  favor  of  God  can  belong  to  falsehood, 
to  malignity,  to  impurity  ?  To  invest  them  with 
aeonian  privileges,  is  in  effect,  and  by  its  results,  to 
distrust  and  to  insult  the  Deity.  Evil  would  not  be 
evil,  if  it  had  that  power  of  self-subsistence  which  is 
imputed  to  it  in  supposing  its  aeonian  life  to  be  co- 
eternal,  with  that  which  crowns  and  glorifies  the  good. 


JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

[1852.] 

Everything  connected  with  our  ordinary  concep- 
tions of  this  man,  of  his  real  purposes,  and  of  his  ulti- 
mate fate,  apparently  is  erroneous.  That  neither  any 
motive  of  his,  nor  any  ruling  impulse,  was  tainted  with 
the  vulgar  treachery  imputed  to  him,  appears  probable 
from  the  strength  of  his  remorse.  And  this  view  of 
his  case  comes  recommended  by  so  much  of  internal 
plausibility,  that  in  Germany  it  has  long  since  shaped 
itself  into  the  following  well-known  hypothesis :  — 
Judas  Iscariot,  it  is  alleged,  participated  in  the  common 
delusion  of  the  apostles  as  to  that  earthly  kingdom  which, 
under  the  sanction  and  auspices  of  Christ,  they  sup- 
posed to  be  waiting  and  ripening  for  the  Jewish  people. 
So  far  there  was  nothing  in  Judas  to  warrant  any  spe- 
cial wonder  or  any  special  blame.  If  he  erved,  so  did 
the  other  apostles.  But  in  one  point  Judas  went  further 
than  his  brethren,  viz.,  in  speculating  upon  the  reasons 
of  Christ  for  delaying  the  inauguration  of  this  kingdom. 
All  things  were  apparently  ripe  for  it ;  all  things  pointed 
to  it ;  the  expectation  and  languishing  desires  of  many 
Hebrew  saints;  the  warning  from  signs;  the  prophetic 
alarms  and  kindling  signals  raised  aloft  by  heralds  like 
the  Baptist ;  the  fermentation  of  revolutionary  doctrines 


148  JUDAS     ISCAKIOT. 

all  over  Judea  ;  the  passionate  impatience  of  the  Roman 
yoke  ;  the  continual  openings  of  new  convulsions  and 
new  opporfunilies  at  the  great  centre  of  Rome  ;  the 
insurrectionary  temper  of  Jewish  society,  as  indicated 
by  the  continual  rise  of  robber  leaders,  that  drew  off 
multitudes  into  the  neighboring  deserts ;  and,  univer- 
sally, the  unsettled  mind  of  the  Jewish  nation.  These 
explosive  materials  had  long  been  accumulated  ;  they 
needed  only  a  kindling  spark.  Heavenly  citations  to 
war  had  long  been  felt  in  the  insults  and  aggressions  of 
paganism ;  there  wanted  only  a  leader.  And  such  a 
leader,  if  he  would  but  consent  to  assume  that  office, 
stood  ready  in  the  founder  of  Christianity.  The  su- 
preme qualifications  for  leadership,  as  revealed  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ,  were  evident  to  all  parties  in 
the  Jewish  community,  and  not  merely  to  the  religious 
body  of  his  own  immediate  followers.  These  qualifi- 
cations were  published  and  expounded  to  the  world  in 
the  facilit}'  with  which  everywhere  he  drew  crowds 
about  himself,^  in  the  extraordinary  depth  of  impression 
which  attended  his  teaching,  and  in  the  fear  as  well  as 
hatred  which  possessed  the  Jewish  rulers  against  him. 
Indeed,  had  it  not  been  for  the  predominance  of  the 
Roman  element  in  the  governmentof  Judea,  it  is  pretty 
certain  that  Christ  would  have  been  crushed  in  an  earlier 
stage  in  his  career. 

Believing,  therefore,  as  Judas  did,  that  Christ  con- 
templated the  establishment  of  a  temporal  kingdom  — 
the  restoration,  in  fact,  of  David's  throne ;  believing, 
also,  that  all  the  conditions  towards  the  realization  of 
such  a  scheme  met  and  centred  in  the  person  of  Christ, 
when  viewed  in  relation  to  the  circumstances  of  the 


JUDAS     ISCARIOT.  149 

times;  what  was  it  that,  upon  any  solution  intelligible 
to  Judas,  neutralized  so  grand  a  scene  of  promise  ? 
Simply  and  obviously,  to  a  man  with  the  views  of  Ju- 
das, it  was  the  character  of  Christ  himself,  sublimely 
over-gifted  for  purposes  of  speculation,  but,  like  Shak- 
speare's  great  creation  of  Prince  Hamlet,  not  commen- 
surately  endowed  for  the  business  of  action  and  the 
sudden  emergencies  of  life.  Indecision  and  doubt  (such 
was  the  interpretation  of  Judas)  crept  over  the  faculties 
of  the  Divine  Man  as  often  as  he  was  summoned  away 
from  his  own  natural  Sabbath  of  heavenly  contempla- 
tion to  the  gross  necessities  of  action.  It  became  im- 
portant, therefore,  according  to  the  views  adopted  by 
Judas,  that  his  master  should  be  precipitated  into  action 
by  a  force  from  without,  and  thrown  into  the  centre  of 
some  popular  movement,  such  as,  once  beginning  to 
revolve,  could  not  afterwards  be  suspended  or  checked. 
It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  this  may  have  been 
the  theory  of  Judas.  Nor  is  it  at  all'neccssary  to  seek 
for  the  justification  of  such  a  theory,  considered  as  a 
matter  of  prudential  policy,  in  Jewish  fanaticism.  The 
Jews  of  that  day  were  distracted  by  internal  schisms. 
Else,  and  with  any  benefit  from  national  unity,  the 
headlong  rapture  of  Jewish  zeal,  when  combined  in 
vindication  of  their  insulted  temple  and  temple-worship, 
would  have  been  equal  to  the  effort  of  dislodging  the 
Roman  legionary  force  for  the  moment  from  the  mili- 
tary possession  of  Palestine.  After  which,  ahhough 
the  restoration  of  the  Roman  supremacy  could  not  ulti- 
mately have  been  evaded,  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  a 
compromise  might  not  have  been  welcome  at  Rome, 
such  as  had,  in  fact,  existed  under  Herod  the  Great 


150  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

and  his  father.^  The  radical  power,  in  fact,  would  have 
been  lodged  in  Rome ;  but  with  such  external  conces- 
sions to  Jewish  nationality  as  might  have  consulted 
the  real  interests  of  both  parties.  Administered  under 
Jewish  names,  the  land  might  have  yielded  a  larger 
revenue  than,  as  a  refractory  nest  of  insurgents,  it  ever 
did  yield  to  the  Roman  exchequer;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  ferocious  bigotry,  which  was  really  sublime  in 
its  indomitable  obstinacy,  might  have  been  humored 
without  prejudice  to  the  grandeur  of  the  imperial 
claims.  Even  little  Palmyra  in  later  times  was 
indulged  to  a  greater  extent  without  serious  injury  in 
any  quarter,  had  it  not  been  for  the  feminine  arrogance 
that  misinterpreted  and  abused  that  indulgence. 

The  miscalculation,  in  fact,  of  Judas  Iscariot  —  sup- 
posing him  really  to  have  entertained  the  views  ascribed 
to  him  —  did  not  hinge  at  all  upon  political  oversights, 
but  upon  a  total  spiritual  blindness;  in  which  blindness, 
however,  he  went  no  farther  than  at  the  time  did  prob- 
ably most  of  his  brethren.  Upon  ihem.,  quite  as  little 
as  upon  him^  had  as  yet  dawned  the  true  grandeur  of 
the  Christian  scheme.  In  this  only  he  outran  his 
brethren  —  that,  sharing  in  their  blindness,  he  greatly 
exceeded  them  in  presumption.  All  alike  had  imputed 
to  their  Master  views  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the 
grandeur  of  his  new  and  heavenly  religion.  It  was  no 
religion  at  all  which  they  as  yet  supposed  to  be  the 
object  of  Christ's  teaching,  but  a  simple  preparation  for 
a  pitiably  vulgar  scheme  of  earthly  aggrandizement. 
But,  whilst  the  other  apostles  had  simply  failed  to  com- 
prehend their  master,  Judas  had  presumptuously  as- 
sumed that  he  comprehended  the  purposes  of  Christ 


JUDAS     ISCARIOT.  151 

more  fully  than  Christ  himself.  His  object  was  auda- 
cious in  a  high  degree,  but  (according  to  the  theory 
which  I  am  explaining)  for  that  very  reason  not  treach- 
erous at  all.  The  more  that  he  was  liable  to  the  re- 
proach of  audacity,  the  less  can  he  be  suspected  of 
perfidy.  He  supposed  himself  executing  the  very 
innermost  purposes  of  Christ,  but  with  an  energy  w:hich 
it  was  the  characteristic  infirmity  of  Christ  to  want. 
His  hope  was,  that,  when  at  length  actually  arrested  by 
the  Jewish  authorities,  Christ  would  no  longer  vacillate  ; 
he  would  be  forced  into  giving  the  signal  to  the  popu- 
lace of  Jerusalem, ^who  would  then  have  risen  unani- 
mously, for  the  double  purpose  of  placing  Christ  at  the 
head  of  an  insurrectionary  movement,  and  of  throwing 
off  the  Roman  yoke.  As  regards  the  worldly  prospects 
of  this  scheme,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that 
Iscariot  was  right.  It  seems,  indeed,  altogether  impos- 
sible that  he,  who  (as  the  treasurer  of  the  apostolic 
fraternity)  had  in  all  likelihood  the  most  of  worldly 
wisdom,  and  was  best  acquainted  with  the  temper  of 
the  times,  could  have  made  any  gross  blunder  as  to  the 
wishes  and  secret  designs  of  the  populace  in  Jerusalem.^ 
This  populace,  however,  not  being  backed  by  any 
strong  section  of  the  aristocracy,  having  no  confidence 
again  in  any  of  the  learned  bodies  connected  with  the 
great  service  of  their  national  temple,  and  having  no 
leaders,  were  apparently  dejected,  and  without  unity. 
The  probability,  meantime,  is,  that  some  popular 
demonstration  would  have  been  made  on  behalf  of 
Christ,  had  he  himself  offered  it  any  encouragement. 
But  we,  who  know  the  incompatibility  of  any  such 
encouragement  with  the  primary  purpose  of  Christ's 


152  JUDAS     ISCARIOT. 

mission  upon  earth,  know  of  necessity  that  Judas,  and 
the  populace  on  which  he  relied,  must  equally  and 
simultaneously  have  found  themselves  undeceived  for 
ever.  In  an  instant  of  time  one  grand  decisive  word 
and  gesture  of  Christ  must  have  put  an  end  perempto- 
rily to  all  hopes  of  that  kind.  In  that  brief  instant, 
enough  was  made  known  to  Judas  for  final  despair. 
Whether  he  had  ever  drunk  profoundly  enough  from 
the  cup  of  spiritual  religion  to  understand  the  full 
meaning  of  Christ's  refusal ;  whether  he  still  adhered 
to  his  worldly  interpretation  of  Christ's  mission,  and 
simply  translated  the  refusal  into  a  confession  that  all 
was  lost,  whilst  in  very  fact  all  was  on  the  brink  of 
absolute  and  triumphant  consummation,  it  is  impossible 
for  us,  without  documents  or  hints,  to  conjecture. 
Enough  is  apparent  to  show  that,  in  reference  to  any 
hopes  that  could  be  consolatory  for  him,  all  was  indeed 
lost.  The  kingdom  of  this  world  had  melted  away  in  a 
moment  like  a  cloud  ;  and  it  mattered  little  to  him  that 
a  spiritual  kingdom  survived,  and  that  intellectually  he 
might  suddenly  become  aware  of  it,  if  in  his  heart 
there  were  no  spiritual  organ  by  which  he  could  appro- 
priate the  new  and  stunning  revelation.  Equally  he 
might  be  swallowed  up  by  despair  in  the  case  of  retain- 
ing his  old  worldly  delusions,  and  finding  the  ground  of 
his  old  anticipations  suddenly  giving  way  below  his 
feet,  or  again  in  the  opposite  case  of  suddenly  correct- 
ing his  own  false  constructions  of  Christ's  mission,  and 
apprehending  a  far  higher  purpose;  but  which  purpose, 
in  the  very  moment  of  becoming  intelligible,  rose  into 
a  region  far  beyond  his  own  frail  fleshly  sympathies. 
He  might  read  more  truly  —  far  more  truly;  but  what 


JUDAS     ISCARIOT.  153 

of  that,  if  the  new  truth  were  nothing  to  him?  The 
despondency  of  Judas  might  be  of  two  different  quali- 
ties, more  or  less  selfish  ;  indeed,  I  would  go  so  far  as 
to  say,  selfish  or  altogether  unselfish.  And  it  is  with 
a  view  to  this  question,  and  under  a  persuasion  of  a 
wrong  done  to  Judas  by  gross  mistranslation  disturbing 
the  Greek  text,  that  1  entered  at  all  upon  this  little 
memorandum.  Else  what  1  have  hitherto  been  at- 
tem|)ting  to  explain  (excepting  only  the  part  relating  to 
the  hakim,  which  is  entirely  my  own  suggestion)  be- 
longs to  German  writers.  The  whple  construction  of 
Iscariot's  conduct,  as  arising,  not  out  of  perfidy,  but  out 
of  iiis  sincere  belief  that  some  quickening  impulse  was 
called  for  by  a  morbid  feature  in  Christ's  temperament 
—  all  this  I  believe  was  originally  due  to  the  Germans  ; 
and  it  is  an  important  correction,  for  it  must  alwaj^s  be 
important  to  recall  within  the  fold  of  Christian  forgive- 
ness any  one  who  has  long  been  sequestered  from 
human  charily,  and  has  tenanted  a  Pariah  grave.  In 
the  greatest  and  most  memorable  of  earthly  tragedies, 
Judas  is  a  prominent  figure.  So  long  as  the  earth  re- 
volves, he  cannot  be  forgotten.  If,  therefore,  there  is 
a  doubt  affecting  his  case,  he  is  entitled  to  the  benefit 
of  that  doubt;  and  if  he  has  suffered  to  any  extent  —  if 
simply  to  the  extent  of  losing  a  palliation,  or  the  shadow 
of  a  palliation  —  by  means  of  a  false  translation  from 
the  Greek,  we  ought  not  to  revise  or  mitigate  his  sen- 
tence merely,  but  to  dismiss  him  from  the  bar.  The 
Germans  make  it  a  question  —  in  what  spirit  Iscariot 
lived?  My  question  is  —  how  he  died  ?  If  he  were 
a  traitor  at  last,  in  that  case  he  was  virtually  a  traitor 
always.     If  he  perpetrated  treason  in  the  last  hours  of 


154  JUDAS     ISCARIOT. 

his  connection  with  Christ,  and  even  a  mercenary  trea- 
son, then  he  must  have  been  dallying  with  the  purpose 
of  treason  during  all  the  hours  of  his  apostleship.  If, 
in  reality,  when  selling  his  master  for  money,  he  meant 
to  betray  him,  and  regarded  the  money  as  the  com- 
mensurate motive  for  betraying  him,  then  his  case  will 
assume  a  very  different  aspect  from  that  impressed 
upon  it  by  the  German  construction  of  the  circum- 
stances. 

The  life  of  Judas,  and  the  death  of  Judas,  taken 
apart,  or  taken  jointly,  each  separately  upon  indepen- 
dent grounds,  or  both  together  upon  common  groundsj 
are  open  to  doubts  and  perplexities.  And  possibly  the 
double  perplexities,  if  fully  before  us,  might  turn  out  to 
be  self-neutralized.  Taking  them  jointly,  we  might 
ask  —  Were  they,  this  life  and  this  death,  to  be 
regarded  as  a  common  movement  on  behalf  of  a  deep 
and  heart-fretting  Hebrew  patriotism,  which  was  not 
the  less  sincere,  because  it  ran  headlong  into  the  un- 
amiable  form  of  rancorous  rationality  and  inhuman 
bigotry  ?  Were  they  a  wild  degeneration  from  a  prin- 
ciple originally  noble  ?  Or,  on  the  contrary,  this  life 
and  this  death,  were  they  alike  the  expression  of  a 
base  mercenary  selfishness,  caught  and  baffled  in  the 
meshes  of  its  own  chicanery  ?  The  life,  if  it  could  be 
appreciated  in  its  secret  principles,  might  go  far  to 
illustrate  the  probable  character  of  the  death.  The 
death,  if  its  circumstances  were  recoverable,  and  could 
be  liberated  from  the  self-contradictory  details  in  the 
received  report,  might  do  something  to  indicate  retro- 
spectively the  character  and  tenor  of  that  life.  The 
life  of  Judas,  under  a  German  construction  of  it,  as  a 


JUDAS     ISCARIOT.  155 

spasmodic  effort  of  vindictive  patriotism  and  of  rebel- 
lious ambition,  noble  by  possibility,  though  erring  and 
worldly-minded,  when  measured  by  a  standard  so  ex- 
alted as  that  of  Christianity,  would  infer  (as  its  natural 
sequel)  a  death  of  fierce  despair.  Read  under  the  ordi- 
nary construction  as  a  life  exposed  to  temptations  that 
were  petty,  and  frauds  that  were  always  mercenary,  it 
could  not  reasonably  be  supposed  to  furnish  any  occasion 
for  passions  upon  so  great  a  scale  as  those  which  seem 
to  have  been  concerned  in  the  tragical  end  of  Judas, 
whether  the  passions  were  those  of  remorse  and  peni- 
tential anguish,  or  of  personal  disappointment.  Leav- 
ing, however,  to  the  Germans,  the  task  of  conjecturally 
restoring  its  faded  lineaments  to  this  mysterious  record 
of  a  crime  that  never  came  before  any  human  tribunal, 
my  own  purpose  is  narrower.  I  seek  to  recall  and  to 
recombine  the  elements,  not  of  the  Iscariot's  life,  nor  of 
his  particular  offence,  but  simply  of  his  death. 

The  reader  is  probably  aware,  that  there  has  always 
been  an  obscurity,  or  even  a  perplexity,  connected 
with  the  death  of  Iscario.t.  Two  only  out  of  the  entire 
five  documents,  which  record  the  rise  and  early  Wstory 
of  Christianity,  have  circumstantially  noticed  this  event, 
Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  leave  it  undcscribed.  St.  Mat* 
thevv  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  have  bequeathed  to 
us  a  picturesque  account  of  it,  which,  to  my  own  be- 
lief, has  been  thoroughly  misunderstood  ;  and,  once 
heing  misunderstood,  naturally  enough  has  been  inter- 
preted as  something  fearfully  preternatural.  The 
crime,  though  great,  of  Iscariot  has  probably  been 
much  exaggerated.  It  was  the  crime  of  signal  and 
earthly  presumption,  seeking  not  to  thwart  the  purposes 


156  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

of  Christ,  or  to  betray  them,  but  to  promote  them  by 
means  utterly  at  war  with  their  central  spirit.  As  far 
as  can  be  judged,  it  was  an  attempt  to  forward  the 
counsels  of  God  by  weapons  borrowed  from  the 
armory  of  darkness.  The  crrtne  being  once  misap- 
prehended as  a  crime,  without  a  name  or  a  precedent, 
it  was  inevitable  that  the  punishment,  so  far  as  it  was 
expounded  by  the  death  of  the  criminal,  should,  in 
obedience  to  this  first  erroneous  preconception,  be 
translated  into  something  preternatural.  To  a  mode 
of  guilt  which  seemed  to  have  no  parallel,  it  was  rea- 
sonable enough  that  there  should  be  apportioned  a  death 
which  allowed  of  no  medical  explanation.'^ 

This  demur,  moreover,  of  obscurity  was  not  the 
only  one  raised  against  the  death  of  Judas :  there  was 
a  separate  objection  —  that  it  was  inconsistent  with 
itself.  He  was  represented,  in  the  ordinary  modern 
versions,  as  dying  by  a  double  death  —  viz.,  1st,  by  a 
suicidal  death:  *  Ae  toent  and  hanged  himself  —  this  is 
the  brief  account  of  his  death  given  by  St.  Matthew; 
but,  2d,  by  a  death  not  suicidal :  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  we  have  a  very  different  account  of  his 
death,  not  suggesting  suicide  at  all,  and  otherwise 
describing  it  as  mysteriously  complex;  that  is,  pre- 
senting us  with  various  circumstances  of  the  case, 
none  of  which,  in  the  common  vernacular  versions 
(English  and  Continental),  is  at  all  intelligible.  The 
elements  in  the  case  are  three :  that  he  *  fell  down 
headlong  ; '  that  he  '  burst  asunder  in  the  middle  ; '.  and 
that  'his  bowels  gushed  out'  —  the  first  of  these  ele 
ments  being  unintelligible  in  the  English  expression  of 
it,  and  the  two  others  being  purely  and  blankly  impos- 
sible. 


JUDAS    ISCARIOT.  157 

These  objections  to  the  particular  mode  of  that 
catastrophe  which  closed  the  career  of  Judas,  had  been 
felt  pretty  generally  in  the  Christian  church,  and  prob- 
ably from  the  earliest  limes;  and  the  more  so  on 
account  of  that  deep  obscurity  which  rested  upon  the 
nature  of  his  offence.  That  a  man,  who  had  been 
solemnly  elected  into  the  small  band  of  the  apostles, 
should  so  far  wander  from  his  duty  as  to  incur  for- 
feiture of  his  great  office  —  this  was  in  itself  suffi- 
ciently dreadful,  and  a  shocking  revival  to  the  human 
imagination  of  that  eldest  amongst  all  traditions  — a 
tradition  descending  to  us  from  what  date  we  know 
not,  nor  through  what  channel  of  original  comininii- 
cation  —  the  possibility  that  even  into  the  heaven  of 
heavens,  and  amongst  the  angelic  hosts,  rebellion 
against  God,  long  before  man  and  human  frailty 
existed,  should  have  crept  by  some  way  metaphy- 
sically inconceivable.  What  search  could  be  suffi- 
cient, where  even  the  eye  of  Christ  had  failed  to 
detect  any  germ  of  evil  ?  Still,  though  the  crime  of 
Judas  had  doubtless  been  profound,"'  and  evidently  to 
me  it  had  been  the  intention  of  the  early  church  to 
throw  a  deep  pall  of  mystery  over  its  extent  —  charily, 
that  unique  charity  which  belongs  to  Christianity,  as 
being  the  sole  charity  ever  preached  to  men,  which 
'  hopeth  all  things,'  inclined  through  every  age  the 
hearts  of  musing  readers  to  suspend  their  verdict  where 
the  Scriptures  had  themselves  practised  some  reserve, 
and  .(were  it  only  by  the  extreme  perplexity  of  its  final 
and  revised  expressions)  had  left  an  opening,  if  not 
almost  an  invitation,  to  doubt.  The  doubt  was  left  by 
the  primitive  church  where  Scripture  had  left  it.    There 


158  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

was  not  any  absolute  necessity  that  this  should  ever  be 
cleared  up  to  man.  But  it  was  felt  from  the  very  first 
that  some  call  was  made  upon  the  church  to  explain 
and  to  harmonize  the  apparently  contradictory  expres- 
sions used  in  what  may  be  viewed  as  the  official  report 
of  the  one  memorable  domestic  tragedy  in  the  infant 
stage  of  the  Christian  history.  Official  I  call  it,  as 
being  in  a  manner  countersigned  by  the  whole  con- 
federate church,  when  proceeding  to  their  first  com- 
mon act  in  filling  up  the  vacancy  consequent  upon  the 
transgression  of  Judas,  whereas  the  account  of  St. 
Matthew  pleaded  no  authority  but  his  own.  And 
domestic  I  call  the  tragedy,  in  prosecution  of  that 
beautiful  image  under  which  a  father  of  our  English 
church  has  called  the  twelve  apostles,  when  celebi'at- 
ing  the  paschal  feast,  '  the  family'^  of  Christ.' 

This  early  essay  of  the  church  to  harmonize  the 
difficult  expressions  employed  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles —  an  essay  which,  therefore,  recognises  at  once 
the  fact  that  these  expressions  really  were  likely  to 
perplex  the  simple-hearted,  and  not  merely  such  read- 
ers as  systematically  raised  cavils  —  was  brought  for- 
ward in  the  earliest  era  of  the  church,  and  under  the 
sanction  of  the  very  highest  authority,  viz.,  by  one 
who  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  beloved  apostle ;  by 
one,  therefore,  who,  if  he  had  not  seen  Christ,  had 
seen  familiarly  him  in  whom  Christ  most  confided. 
But  I  will  report  the  case  in  the  words  of  that  golden- 
mouthed  rhetorician,  that  Chrysostom  of  the  English 
Church,  from  whose  lips  all  truth  came  mended,  and 
who,  in  spite  of  Shakspeare  himself,  found  it  possible 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  159 

'  To  gild  refined  gold,  to  paint  the  lily, 
And  add  another  perfume  to  the  "Violet.' 

The  following  is  the  account  given  by  Jeremy  Taylor 
of  the  whole  history,  in  so  far  as  it  affects  the  Scrip- 
ture report  of  what  Judas  did,  and  what  finally  he 
suffered :  — '  Two  days  before  the  passover,  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  called  a  council  to  contrive 
crafty  ways '^  of  destroying  Jesus,  they  not  daring  to  do 
it  by  open  violence.  Of  which  meeting,  when  Judas 
Iscariot  had  notice  (for  those  assemblies  were  public 
and  notorious)  he  ran  from  Bethany,  and  offered  him- 
self to  betray  his  Master  to  them,  if  they  would  give 
him  a  considerable  reward.  They  agreed  for  thirty 
pieces  of  silver.'  In  a  case  so  memorable  as  this, 
nothing  is  or  can  be  trivial ;  and  even  that  curiosity  is 
not  unhallowed  which  has  descended  to  inquire  what 
sum,  at  that  era  of  Jewish  history,  this  expression 
might  indicate.  The  bishop  replies  thus  :  —  'Of  Avhat 
value  each  piece  was,  is  uncertain  ;  but  their  own  na- 
tion hath  given  a  rule,  that,  when  a  piece  of  silver  is 
named  in  the  Pentateuch,  it  signifies  a  side ;  if  it  be 
named  in  the  Prophets,  it  signifies  a  pound ;  if  in  the 
other  writings  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  signifies  a 
talent.''  For  this,  besides  other  less  familiar  authority, 
there  is  cited  the  well-known  Arius  Montanus,  in  the 
Syro-Chaldaic  dictionary.  It  is,  however,  self-evident 
that  any  service  open  to  Judas  would  have  been  pre- 
posterously overpaid  by  thirty  talents,  a  sum  which 
exceeded  five  thousand  pounds  sterling.  And  since 
this  particular  sum  had  originally  rested  on  the  author- 
ity of  a  prophet,  cited  by  one  of  the  evangelists,^  '  it 
is  probable,'  proceeds  the  bishop,  '  that  tlie  price  at 


160  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

which  Judas  sold  his  lord  was  thirty  pounds  weight  of 
silver  [that  is,  about  ninety  guineas  sterling  in  English 
money]  — a  goodly  price  for  the  Saviour  of  the  world 
to  be  prized  at  by  his  undiscernlng  and  unworthy 
countrymen.'  Where,  however,  the  learned  writer 
makes  a  slight  oversight  in  logic,  since  it  was  not  pre- 
cisely Christ  that  was  so  valued  —  this  prisoner  as 
against  the  certain  loss  of  this  prisoner  —  but  simply 
this  particular  mode  of  contending  with  the  difficulty 
attached  to  his  apprehension,  so  that,  in  the  worst  case, 
this  opportunity  lost  might  be  replaced  by  other  oppor- 
tunities;  and  the  price,  therefore,  was  not  calculated 
as  it  would  have  been  under -one  solitary  chance. 

Tlie  bishop  then  proceeds  with  the  rehearsal  of  all 
the  circumstances  connected  with  the  pretended  trial 
of  Christ ;  and  coming  in  the  process  of  his  narrative 
to  the  conduct  of  Judas  on  learning  the  dreadful  turn 
which  things  were  taking  (conduct  which  surely  argues 
that  he  had  anticipated  a  most  opposite  catastrophe), 
he  winds  up  the  case  of  the  Tscariot  in  the  following 
passage  — '  When  Judas  heard  that  they  had  passed 
the  final  and  decretory  sentence  of  death  upon  his 
Lord,  he,  who  thought  not  it  would  ha vo- gone  so  far, 
repented  him  to  have  been  an  instrument  of  so  damn- 
able a  machination,  and  came  and  brought  the  silver 
which  they  gave  him  for  hire,  threw  it  in  amongst 
them,  and  said,  '  1  have  sinned  in  betraying  the  inno. 
cent  blood.'  But  they,  incurious  of  those  hell-torments 
Judas  felt  within  him,  because  their  own  fires  burned 
not  yet,  dismissed  him,'  I  pause  for  a  moment  to 
observe  that,  in  the  expression,  '  repented  him  to  have 
been    an    instrument,'    the   context  shows   the    bishop 


JXJDAS    ISCARIOT.  161 

intending  to  represent  Judas  as  recoiling  from  the  issue 
of  his  own  acts,  and  from  so  damnable  a  machination, 
not  because  his  better  feelings  were  evoked,  as  the 
prospect  of  ruin  to  his  Master  drew  near,  and  that  he 
shrank  from  that  same  thing  when  taking  a   definite 
shape   of   fulfilment,   which  he   had   faced    cheerfully 
when  at  a  distance  —  not  at  all :  the  bishop's  meaning  is 
—  that  Judas  recoiled   from  his  own  acts  at  the  very 
instant  when   he  began  to  understand  their  real  con- 
sequences  now    solemnly    opening   upon    his   horror- 
stricken    understanding.      He    had    hoped,    probably, 
much  from  the  Roman  interference ;  and  the  history 
itself  shows  that  in  this  he  had  not  been  at  all  too  san- 
guine.   Justice  has  never  yet  been  done  to  the  conduct 
of  Pilate.     That  man  has  little  comprehended  the  style 
and  manner  of  the  New  Testament  who  does  not  per- 
ceive the  demoniac  earnestness  of  Pilate  to  effect  the 
liberation  of  Christ,  or  who  fails  to  read  the  anxiety  of 
the   several  evangelists  to  put  on  record  his  profound 
sympathy  with   the   prisoner.     The   falsest  word   that 
ever  yet  was  uttered  upon  any  part  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, is  that  sneer  of  Lord  Bacon's  at  ^jesting  Pilate.' 
Pilate  was  in  deadly  earnest  from  first  to  last,  and 
retired  from  his  frantic  effort  on  behalf  of  Christ,  only 
when  his  own  safety  began  to  be  seriously  compro- 
mised.    Do  the  thoughtless  accusers  of  Pilate  fancy 
that  he  was  a  Christian  ?     If  not,  why,  or  on  what 
principle,  was  he  to  ruin  himself  at  Rome,  in  order  to 
favor  one   he  could   not  save   at   Jerusalem  ?      How 
reasonably  Judas  had  relied  upon  the  Roman  inter- 
ference,  is   evident   from   what   actually  took    place. 
Judas  relied,  secondly,  upon  the  populace,  and  tha 
11 


162  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

this  reliance  also  was  well  warranted,  appears  from 
repeated  instances  of  the  fear  with  which  the  Jewish 
rulers  contemplated  Christ.  Why  did  they  fear  him 
at  all?  Simply,  as  he  was  backed  by  the  people  :  had 
it  not  been  for  their  support,  Christ  was  no  more  an 
object  of  terror  to  them  than  his  herald,  the  Baptist. 
But  what  I  here  insist  on  is  (which  else  from  some 
expressions  the  reader  might  fail  to  understand),  that 
Jeremy  Taylor  nowhere  makes  the  mistake  of  suppos- 
ing Judas  to  have  originally  designed  the  ruin  of  his 
Master,  and  nowhere  understands  by  his  'repentance' 
that  he  felt  remorse  on  coming  near  to  consequences 
which  from  a  distance  he  had  welcomed.  He  admits 
clearly  that  Judas  was  a  traitor  only  in  the  sense  of 
seeking  his  Master's  aggrandizement  by  methods  which 
placed  him  in  revolt  against  that  Master,  methods  which 
not  only  involved  express  and  formal  disobedience  to 
that  Master,  but  which  ran  into  headlong  hostility 
against  the  spirit  of  all  that  he  came  on  earth  to  effect. 
It  was  the  revolt,  not  of  perfidious  malignity,  but  of 
arrogant  and  carnal  blindness.  In  respect  to  the 
gloomy  termination  of  the  Iscariot's  career,  and  to  the 
perplexing  account  of  it  given  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles, the  bishop  closes  his  account  thus:  —  'And  Judas 
went  and  hanged  himself;  and  the  judgment  was  made 
more  notorious  and  eminent  by  an  unusual  accident  at 
such  deaths ;  for  he  so  swelled,  that  he  burst,  and  his 
bowels  gushed  out.  But  the  Greek  scholiast  and  some 
others  report  out  of  Papias,  St.  John's  scholar,  that 
Judas  fell  from  the  fig-tree,  on  which  he  hanged,  before 
he  was  quite  dead,  and  survived  his  attempt  somewhile  ; 
being  so  sad  a  spectacle  of  deformity  and  pain,  and  a 


JUDAS    ISCARIOT.  163 

prodigious  tumor,  that  his  plague  was  deplorable  and 
highly  miserable ;  till  at  last  he  burst  in  the  very  sub- 
stance of  his  trunk,  as  being  extended  beyond  the  pos- 
sibilities ^  and  capacities  of  nature.' 

In  this  corrected  version  of  Papias,  we  certainly  gain 
an  intelligible  account  of  what  otherwise  is  far  from  in- 
telligible, viz.,  the  falling  headlong.  But  all  the  rest 
is  a  dismal  heap  of  irrationalities  ;  and  the  single  ray 
of  light  which  is  obtained,  viz.,  the  suggestion  of  the 
fig-tree  as  an  elevation,  which  explains  the  possibility 
of  a  headlong  fall,  is  of  itself  an  argument  that  some 
great  disturbance  must  have  happened  to  the  text  at 
this  point,  else  how  could  so  material  a  circumstance 
have  silently  dropped  out  of  the  narrative  }  There  are 
passages  in  every  separate  book  of  the  canon,  into 
which  accident,  or  the  somnolence  of  copyists,  has  in- 
troduced errors  seriously  disturbing  the  sense  and  the 
coherence.  Many  of  these  have  been  rectified  in  the 
happiest  manner  by  ingenious  suggestions  ;  and  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  these  suggestions  has  been  since 
verified  and  approved  by  the  discovery  of  new  manu- 
scripts, or  the  more  accurate  collation  of  old  ones.  In 
the  present  case,  a  much  slighter  change  than  might  be 
supposed  will  suffice  to  elicit  a  new  and  perfect  sense 
from  the  general  outline  of  that  text  which  still  survives. 
First,  as  to  the  phrase  '■fell  headlong,'*  I  do  not  under- 
stand it  of  any  fall  from  a  fig-tree,  or  from  any  tree 
whatever.  This  fig-tree  I  regard  as  a  purely  fanciful 
resource  ;  and  evidently  an  innovation  to  this  extent 
ranks  amongst  those  conjectural  audacities  which  shock 
the  discreet  reader,  as  most  unsatisfactory  and  licen- 
tious, because  purely  gratuitous,  when  they  rest  upon 


164  JUDAS   ISCARIOT. 

no  traces  th^t  can  be  indicated  as  still  lurking  in  the 
present  text.  Fell  headlong  may  stand  as  at  present : 
it  needs  no  change,  for  it  discloses  a  very  good  and 
sufficient  sense,  if  we  understand  it  figuratively  as 
meaning  that  he  came  to  utter  and  unmitigated  ruin, 
that  his  wreck  was  total,  for  that,  instead  of  dedicating 
himself  to  a  life  of  penitential  sorrow,  such  as  would 
assuredly  have  conciliated  the  divine  forgiveness,  the 
unhappy  criminal  had  rushed  out  of  life  by  suicide.  So 
far,  at  least,  all  is  sound  and  coherent,  and  under  no 
further  obligations  to  change  small  or  great,  beyond  the 
reading  that,  in  a  metaphorical  sense,  which,  if  read 
(as  hitherto)  in  a  literal  sense,  would  require  the  very 
serious  interpolation  of  an  imaginary  fig-tree. 

What  remains  is  equally  simple  :  the  change  re- 
quired involves  as  little  violence,  and  the  result  from 
this  change  will  appear  equally  natural.  But  a  brief 
preliminary  explanation  is  requisite,  in  order  to  place 
it. advantageously  before  the  reader.  The  ancients  use 
the  term  lowels  with  a  latitude  unknown  generally  to 
modern  literature,  but  especially  to  English  literature. 
In  the  midst  of  the  far  profounder  passion  which  distin- 
guishes the  English  from  all  literatures  on  the  modern 
European  continent,  it  is  singular  that  a  fastidious  de- 
corum never  sleeps  for  a  moment.  It  might  be  imag- 
ined that  this  fastidiousness  would  be  in  the  Inverse 
ratio  of  the  passion  :  but  it  is  not  so.  In  particular  the 
French,  certainly  the  literature  which  ranges  at  the 
lowest  elevation  upon  the  scale  of  passion,  nevertheless 
is  often  homely,  and  even  gross,  in  its  recurrences  to 
frank  elementary  nature.  For  a  lady  to  describe  her- 
self as  laughing  d  gorge  deployee^  a  grossness  which 


JUDAS    ISCARIOT.  165 

with  us,  equally  on  the  stage  or  in  /eal  life,  would  be 
regarded  with  horror,  amongst  the  French  attracts  no 
particular  attention.  Again,  amidst  the  supposed  refine- 
ments of  French  tragedy,  and  not  observe  the  coarser 
tragedy  of  Corneille,  but  amidst  the  more  feminine  and 
polished  tragedy  of  Racine,  there  is  no  recoil  at  all  from 
saying  of  such  or  such  a  sentiment,  '  11  me  perce  les 
entrailles '  —  it  penetrates  my  bowels.  The  Greeks 
and  Romans  still  more  extensively  use  the  several  va- 
rieties of  expression  for  the  intestines,  as  a  symbolic 
phraseology  for  the  domestic  and  social  affections.  We 
English  even,  fastidious  as  we  are,  employ  the  term 
bowels  as  a  natural  symbolization  for  the  affections  of 
pity,  mercy,  or  parental  and  brotherly  affection.  At 
least  we  do  so  in  recurring  to  the  simplicities  of  the 
scriptural  style.  But,  amongst  the  Romans,  the  word 
viscera  is  so  naturally  representative  of  the  household 
affections,  that  at  length  it  becomes  necessary  to  recall 
an  English  reader  to  the  true  meaning  of  this  word. 
Through  some  physiological  prejudice,  it  is  true  that 
the  bowels  have  always  been  regarded  as  the  seat  of 
the  more  tender  and  sorrowing  sympathies.  But  the 
viscera  comprehended  all  the  intestines,  or  (as  the 
French  term  them)  les  entrailles.  The  heart  even  is  a 
viscus ;  perhaps  in  a  very  large  acceptation  the  brain 
might  be  regarded  as  a  co-viscus  with  the  heart.  There 
is  very  slight  ground  for  holding  the  brain  to  be  the 
organ  of  thinking,  or  the  heart  of  moral  sensibilities, 
more  than  the  stomach,  or  the  bowels,  or  the  intestines 
generally.  But  waive  all  this  :  the  Romans  designated 
the  seat  of  the  larger  and  nobler  [i.  e.,  the  moral)  sen- 
sibilities indifferently  by  these  three  terms  :  the  pectus^ 


166  JUDAS   ISCARIOT. 

the  prcccordia,  and  the  viscera ;  as  to  the  cor,  it  seems 
to  me  that  it  denoted  the  heart  in  its  grosser  and  more 
animal  capacities  :  '  Molie  meum  levibus  cor  est  viola- 
bile  relis ;'  it  was  the  seat  of  sexual  passion  ;  but  nobler 
and  more  reflective  sensibilities  inhabited  the  pectus  or 
prcBcordia ;  and  naturally  out  of  these  physiologic 
preconceptions  arose  corresponding  expressions  for 
wounded  or  ruined  sensibilities.  We  English,  for  in- 
stance, insist  on  the  disease  of  hroken  hearty  which 
Sterne,  in  a  well-known  passage,  postulates  as  a  malady 
not  at  all  less  definite  than  phthisis,  or  podagra,  though 
(as  he  says)  not  formally  recognised  in  the  bills  of  mor- 
tality. But  it  is  evident  that  a  theory  which  should 
represent  the  viscera  as  occupied  by  those  functions  of 
the  moral  sensibilities  which  ive  place  in  the  central 
viscus  of  the  heart,  must,  in  following  out  that  hypo- 
thesis, figure  the  case  of  these  sensibilities  when  utterly 
ruined  under  corresponding  images.  Our  '  broken 
heart'  will  therefore  to  them  become  ruptured  viscera, 
or  prcBcordia  that  have  burst.  To  burst  in  the  middle, 
is  simply  to  be  shattered  and  ruined  in  the  central  organ 
of  our  sensibilities,  which  is  the  heart ;  and  in  saying 
that  the  viscera  of  Iscariot,  or  his  middle,  had  burst  and 
gushed  out,  the  original  reporter  meant  simply  that  his 
heart  had  broke.  That  was  precisely  his  case.  Out  of 
pure  anguish  that  the  scheme  which  he  meant  for  the 
sudden  glorification  of  his  Master,  had  recoiled  (accord- 
ing to  all  worldly  interpretation)  in  his  utter  ruin  ;  that 
the  sudden  revolution,  through  a  democratic  movement, 
which  was  to  raise  himself  and  his  brother  apostles  into 
Hebrew  princes,  had  scattered  them  like  sheep  without 
a  shepherd ;  and  that  superadded  to  this  common  bur- 


JUDAS    ISCARIOT.  167 

den  of  ruin  he  personally  had  to  bear  a  separate  load  of 
conscious  disobedience  to  God  and  insupportable  re- 
sponsibility ;  naturally  enough  out  of  all  this  he  fell  into 
fierce  despair ;  his  heart  broke  ;  and  under  that  storm 
of  affliction  he  hanged  himself.  Here,  again,  all  clears 
itself  up  by  the  simple  substitution  of  a  figurative  inter- 
pretation for  one  grossly  physical.  All  contradiction 
disappears  ;  not  three  deaths  assault  him,  viz.,  suicide, 
and  also  a  rupture  of  the  intestines,  and  also  an  unin- 
telligible effusion  of  the  viscera  ;  but  simply  suicide, 
and  suicide  as  the  result  of  that  despondency  which  was 
figured  under  the  natural  idea  of  a  broken  heart.  The 
incoherences  are  gone  ;  the  contradictions  have  van- 
ished ;  and  the  gross  physical  absurdities,  which  under 
mistranslation  had  perplexed  the  reverential  student,  no 
longer  disfigure  the  Scriptures. 

Looking  back  to  the  foot-note  on  the  oriental  idea  of 
the  hakim,  as  a  mask  politically  assumed  by  Christ  and 
the  evangelists,  under  the  conviction  of  its  indispcnsa- 
bleness  to  the  free  propagation  of  Christian  philosophy, 
I  am  induced,  for  the  sake  of  detaining  the  reader's  eye 
a  little  longer  upon  a  matter  so  important  in  the  history 
of  Christianity,  if  only  it  may  be  regarded  as  true,  to 
subjoin  an  extract  from  a  little  paper  written  by  myself 
heretofore,  but  not  published.  I  may  add  these  two 
remarks,  viz.,  first,  that  the  attribution  to  St.  Luke  of 
this  medical  character,  probably  had  its  origin  in  the 
simple  fact,  that  an  assumption  made  by  all  the  evan- 
gelists, and  perhaps  by  all  the  apostles,  had  hap- 
pened to  attract  more  attention  in  him  from  merely 
local  causes.  One  or  two  of  the  other  apostles  having 
pursued  their  labors  of  Propagandism  under  the  avowed 


168  JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 

character  of  hakiins,  many  others  in  the  same  region 
would  escape  special  notice  in  that  character,  simply 
because,  as  men  notoriously  ready  to  plead  it,  they  had 
not  been  challenged  to  do  so  by  the  authorities  ;  whilst 
others,  in  regions  where  the  government  had  not  become 
familiar  with  the  readiness  to  plead  such  a  privilege  as 
part  of  the  apostolic  policy,  would  be  driven  into  the 
necessity  of  actually  advancing  the  plea,  and  would 
thus  (like  St.  Luke)  obtain  a  traditionary  claim  to  the 
medical  title  which  in  a  latent  sense  had  belonged  to 
all,  though  all  had  not  been  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
pleading  it.  Secondly,  I  would  venture  to  suggest,  that 
the  T/ierapeuta;,  or  healers,  technically  so  called,  who 
came  forward  in  Egypt  during  the  generation  immedi- 
ately succeeding  to  that  of  Christ,  were  neither  more 
nor  less  than  disguised  apostles  to  Christianity,  preach- 
ing the  same  doctrines  essentially  as  Christ,  and  under 
the  very  same  protecting  character  of  hakims,  but  put- 
ting forward  this  character  perhaps  more  prominently, 
or  even  retreating  into  it  altogether,  according  to  the 
increasing  danger  which  everywhere  awaited  them  from 
the  hostile  bigotry  of  expatriated  Jews,  as  they  gradually 
came  to  understand  the  true  and  anti-national  views  of 
those  who  called  themselves  Christians,  or  Nazarenes, 
or  Galileans. 

In  short,  abstracting  altogether  from  the  haired  to 
Christ,  founded  on  eternal  principles  of  the  enmity  be- 
tween the  wof-ldly  and  the  spiritual,  and  looking  only 
to  the  political  uneasiness  amongst  magistrates  which 
accompanied  the  early  footsteps  of  Christianity,  one 
may  illustrate  it  by  the  parallel  feelings  which  in  our 
own  generation,  amongst  the  Portuguese,  for  instance, 


JUDAS    ISCARIOT.  169 

have  (logged  the  movements  of  free-masonry,  AVe  in 
England  view  this  panic  as  irrational :  and  amongst 
ourselves  it  would  be  so  ;  for  British  free-masonry  con- 
ceals nothing  worse  than  it  professes.  But,  on  the 
Continent,  it  became  a  mask  for  shrouding  any  or  every 
system  of  anti-social  doctrine,  or,  again,  for  playing 
into  the  hands  of  treason  and  conspiracy.  There  was 
always  in  the  first  place  a  reasonable  fear  of  secret  and 
perilous  doctrines  —  Communism,  for  instance,  under 
some  modification,  or  rancorous  Jacobinism.  And 
secondly,  suppose  that  for  the  present,  or  in  the  exist- 
ing stage  of  the  secret  society,  there  really  were  no 
esoteric  and  mischievous  doctrine  propagated,  there 
was  at  any  rate  the  custom  established  of  meeting  to- 
gether in  secret,  of  corresponding  by  an  alphabet  of 
conventional  signals,  and  of  acting  by  an  impenetrable 
organization,  always  applicable  to  evil  purposes,  even 
where  it  might  not  originally  have  been  so  applied. 
The  machinery  which  binds  together  any  secret  society, 
as  being  always  available  for  evil  ends,  must  inevitably 
justify  some  uneasiness  in  all  political  authorities.  And, 
under  those  circumstances,  the  public  jealousy  must 
have  operated  against  the  free  movement  of  early 
Christianity  :  nothing  could  have  disarmed  it,  except 
some  counter-principle  so  managed,  as  to  insure  that 
freedom  of  public  meetings  which  opened  the  sine  qua 
non  channel  for  the  free  propagation  of  religious  truth. 
Sucli  a  counter-force  was  brought  into  play  by  Christ 
on  that  day  when  first  he  offered  himself  to  Judea  as  a 
hakiiit,  or  popular  physician.  Under  the  shelter  of  that 
benign  character,  at  one  blow  he  overthrew  an  obstacle 
that  would  else  infallibly  have  frozen  the  very  clement 


170  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

in  which  only  any  system  of  novel  teaching  could 
attempt  to  move.  Most  diseases  were  by  the  Jews  in- 
vested with  more  or  less  of  a  supernatural  character  ; 
and  in  no  department  of  knowledge  was  the  immediate 
illumination  from  above  more  signally  presumed  than 
in  the  treatment  of  diseases.  A  physician  who  was 
thus  divinely  guided  in  the  practice  of  his  art  was  a 
debtor  to  God  and  to  his  fellow-men  for  the  adequate 
application  of  so  heavenly  a  gift.  And,  if  he  could  not 
honorably  withdraw  from  the  mission  with  which  God 
had  charged  him,  far  less  could  politicians  and  magis- 
trates under  any  allegation  of  public  inconveniences 
presume  to  obstruct  or  to  make  of  none  effect  the  sub- 
lime mysteries  of  art  and  sagacity  with  which  the  prov- 
idence of  God  had  endowed  an  individual  for  the  relief 
of  suffering  humanity  ;  the  hakim  was  a  debtor  to  the 
whole  body  of  his  afflicted  countrymen  :  but  for  that 
very  reason  he  was  also  a  creditor  ;  a  creditor  entitled 
to  draw  upon  the  amplest  funds  of  indulgence  ;  and 
privileged  to  congregate  his  countrymen  wherever  he 
moved.  Here  opened  suddenly  a  broad  avenue  to 
social  intercourse,  without  which  all  communication  for 
purposes  of  religious  teaching  would  have  been  sealed 
against  Christ.  As  a  hakim,  Christ  obtained  that 
unlimited  freedom  of  intercourse  with  the  populace, 
which,  as  a  religious  proselytizer,  he  never  could  have 
obtained.  Here,  therefore,  and  perhaps  by  the  very 
earliest  exemplification  of  the  serpent's  wisdom  and 
foresight  engrafting  itself  upon  the  holy  purposes  of 
dovelike  benignity,  Christ  kept  open  for  himself  (and 
for  his  disciples  in  times  to  come)  the  freedom  of  public 
communication,   and  the  license  of  public    meetings. 


JUDAS    ISCARIOT.  171 

Once  announcing  himself,  and  attesting  his  own  mis- 
eion  as  a  hakim,  he  could  not  be  rejected  or  thwarted 
as  a  public  oracle  of  truth  and  practical  counsel  to  hu- 
man weakness.  This  explains,  what  else  would  have 
been  very  obscure,  the  undue  emphasis  which  Christ 
allowed  men  to  place  upon  his  sanatory  miracles.  His 
very  name  in  Greek,  viz.,  ii,aiig,  presented  him  to  men 
under  the  idea  of  the  healer ;  but  then,  to  all  who  com- 
prehended his  secret  and  ultimate  functions,  as  a  healer 
of  unutterable  and  spiritual  wounds.  That  usurpation, 
by  which  a  very  trivial  function  of  Christ's  public  min- 
istrations was  allowed  to  disturb  and  sometimes  to 
eclipse  far  grander  pretensions,  carried  with  it  so  far  an 
erroneous  impression.  But  then,  on  the  other  hand, 
seventy-fold  it  redeemed  that  error,  by  securing  (which 
nothing  else  could  have  secured)  the  benefit  of  a  per- 
petual passport  to  the  religious  missionary  :  since, 
once  admitted  as  a  medical  counsellor,  the  missionary, 
the  hakim,  obtained  an  unlimited  right  of  intercourse. 
If  medical  advice,  why  not  religious  advice  ?  And 
subsequently,  by  the  continuance  of  the  same  medical 
gifts  to  -the  apostles  and  their  successors,  all  exercised 
the  same  powers,  and  benefited  by  the  same  privileges 
as  hakims. 


NOTES. 


Note  1.    Page  148. 

'  Brew  crowds  about  him  :'  —  As  connected  with  these  crowds, 
I  have  elsewhere  noticed,  many  years  ago,  the  secret  reason 
which  probably  governed  our  Saviour  in  cultivating  the  charac- 
ter and  functions  of  a  hakim,  or  physician.  Throughout  the 
whole  world  of  civilization  at  that  era  [»,  oixovuiv)],  whatever 
might  be  otherwise  the  varieties  of  the  government,  there  was 
amongst  the  ruling  authorities  a  great  jealousy  of  mobs  and 
popular  gatherings.  To  a  grand  revolutionary  teacher,  no 
obstacle  so  fatal  as  this  initial  prejudice  could  have  offered  itself. 
Already,  in  the  first  place,  a  new  and  mysterious  body  of  truth, 
having  vast  and  illimitable  relations  to  human  duties  and  pros- 
pects, presented  a  tield  of  indefinite  alarm.  That  this  truth 
should  in  the  second  place  publish  itself,  not  through  books  and 
written  discourses,  but  orally,  by  word  of  mouth,  and  by  personal 
communication  between  vast  mobs  and  the  divine  teacher  — 
already  that,  as  furnishing  a  handle  of  influence  to  a  mob-leader, 
justified  a  preliminary  alarm.  But  then,  thirdly,  as  furnishing  a 
plea  for  bringing  crowds  together,  such  a  mode  of  teaching  must 
have  crowned  the  suspicious  presumptions  against  itself.  One 
peril  there  was  at  any  rate  to  begin  with  —  the  peril  of  a  mob : 
that  was  certain.  And,  secondly,  there  was  the  doctrine  taught : 
which  doctrine  was  mysterious  and  uncertain  ;  and  iu  that  un- 
certainty lay  another  peril.  So  that,  equally  through  what  was 
fixed  and  what  was  doubtful,  there  arose  that  '  fear  cf  change ' 
which  by  authentic  warrant '  perplexes  monarchs.' 


174  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

Note  2.  Page  150. 
♦  Under  Herod  the  Great  and  his  father  :'  —  It  was  a  tradition 
which  circulated  at  Rome  down  to  the  days  of  the  Flavian  family, 
that  the  indulgence  conceded  to  Judea  by  the  imperial  policy  from 
Augustus  downwards,  arose  out  of  the  following  little  diplomatic 
secret :  —  On  the  rise  of  the  Parthian  power,  ambassadors  had 
been  sent  to  Antipater,  the  father  of  Herod,  offering  the  Parthian 
alliance  and  support.  At  the  same  moment  there  happened  to 
be  at  Jerusalem  a  Roman  agent,  having  a  mission  from  the 
Roman  Government  with  exactly  the  same  objects.  The  question 
was  most  solemnly  debated,  for  it  was  obvious,  that  ultimately 
this  question  touched  the  salvation  of  the  kingdom,  since  to 
accept  an  alliance  with  either  empire,  would  be  to  insure  the 
bitter  hostility  of  the  other.  AVith  that  knowledge  fully  before 
his  mind,  Antipater  made  his  definitive  election  for  Rome.  The 
case  transpired  at  Rome  —  the  debate,  and  the  issue  of  the 
debate  —  and  eventually  proved  worth  a  throne  to  the  Ilerodian 
family  ;  for  the  honor  of  Rome  seemed  to  be  concerned  in 
supporting  the  man  who,  in  this  sort  of  judgment  of  Paris, 
had  solemnly  awarded  the  prize  of  superiority  to  the  remoter 
potentate. 

Note  3.     Page  151. 

'  Of  the  populace  in  Jer7isalem  :  ^  —  Judas,  not  less  than  the 
other  apostles,  had  doubtless  been  originally  chosen,  upon  the 
apparent  ground  of  superior  simplicity  and  unworldliness,  or 
else  of  superior  zeal  in  testifying  his  obedience  to  the  wishes  of 
his  Master.  But  the  other  eleven  were  probably  exposed  to  no 
special  temptation  :  Judas,  as  the  purse-bearer,  was.  His 
official  duty  must  have  brought  him  every  day  into  minute  and 
circumstantial  communication  with  an  important  order  of  men, 
viz.,  petty  shop-keepers.  In  all  countries  alike,  these  men  fulfil 
a  great  political  function.  Beyond  all  others,  they  are  brought 
into  the  most  extensive  connection  with  the  largest  stratum  by 
far  in  the  composition  of  society.  They  receive,  and  with  dread- 
ful fidelity  they  give  back,  all  Jacobinical  impulses.  They  know 
thoroughly  in  what  channels,  under  any  call  arising  for  action, 
these  impulses  are  at  any  time  moving.     They  are  always  kept 


NOTES.  175 

np  au  courant  of  the  interior  councils  and  ultimate  objects  of  the 
most  national,  and,  in  one  sense,  the  most  powerful  body  in  the 
■whole  community.  Consciousness,  which  such  men  always  have, 
of  deep  incorruptible  fidelity  to  their  mother-land,  and  to  her 
interests,  however  ill  understood,  ennobles  their  politics,  even 
when  otherwise  base.  They  are  corrupters  in  a  service  that 
never  can  be  utterly  corrupt.  They  have  therefore  a  power  to 
win  attention  from  virtuous  men  ;  and,  being  known  to  speak  a 
representative  language,  they  would  easily,  in  a  land  so  agitated 
and  unreconciled,  so  wild,  stormy,  and  ignorant  as  Judea,  kindle 
in  stirring  minds  the  most  worldly  contagions  as  to  principle  and 
purpose  :  on  the  one  hand,  kept  through  these  men  in  vital  sym- 
pathy with  the  restless  politics  of  the  insurrectionist  populace  — 
on  the  other,  hearing  a  sublime  philosophy  that  rested  for  its 
key-note  upon  the  advent  of  vast  revolutions  among  men  —  what 
wonder  that  Judas  should  connect  his  daily  experience  by  an 
imaginary  synthesis  ? 

Note  4.  Page  156. 
•  JVb  medical  explanation  .- '  —  In  neutral  points,  having  no 
relation  to  morals  or  religious  philosophy,  it  is  not  concealed  by 
the  scriptural  records  themselves,  that  even  inspired  persons 
made  grave  mistakes.  All  the  apostles,  it  is  probable,  or  with 
the  single  exception  of  St.  John,  shared  in  the  mistake  about  the 
second  coming  of  Christ,  as  an  event  immediately  to  be  looked 
for.  With  respect  to  diseases,  again,  it  is  evident  that  the  apos- 
tles, in  common  with  all  Jews,  were  habitually  disposed  to  read 
in  them  distinct  manifestations  of  heavenly  wrath.  In  blind- 
ness, for  instance,  or,  again,  in  death  from  the  fall  of  a  tower, 
they  read,  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  plain  expression  of  tiic  divine 
displeasure  pointed  at  an  individual.  That  they  should  even 
pause  so  far  as  to  make  a  doubt  whether  the  individual  or  his 
parents  were  the  object  of  this  displeasure,  arose  only  from  the 
absolute  coercion  to  so  much  reserve  as  this  which  was  contin- 
ually obtruding  itself  in  the  cases  where  innocent  infants  were 
the  sufferers.  This,  in  fact,  was  a  prejudice  inalienable  from 
tlieir  Jewish  training  ;  and  as  it  would  unavoidably  lead  often- 
times to  judgments  not  only  false  but  also  uucharitable,  it  re- 


176  JUDAS    ISCARIOT. 

ceiveil,  on  more  occasions  than  one,  a  stern  rebuke  from  Christ 
himself.  In  the  same  spirit,  it  is  probable  that  the  symptoms 
attending  death  were  sometimes  erroneously  reported  as  preter- 
natural, when,  in  fact,  such  as  every  hospital  could  match. 
The  death  of  the  first  Hei-od  was  regarded  by  the  early  Christians 
universally  as  a  judicial  expression  of  God's  wrath  to  the  author 
of  the  massacre  at  Bethlehem,  though  in  reality  the  symptoms 
were  suoli  as  often  occur  in  obstinate  derangements  of  the  ner- 
vous system.  Indeed,  as  to  many  features,  the  malady  of  the 
Fi'enuh  king,  Charles  IX.,  whose  nervous  system  had  been  shat- 
tered by  the  horrors  of  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre,  very 
nearly  resembled  it  ;  with  such  differences  as  might  be  looked 
for  between  an  old,  ruined  constitution,  such  as  Herod's,  and 
one  so  youtiiful  as  that  of  Charles.  In  the  Acts  of  tlie  Apostles, 
again,  the  grandson  of  Herod  (Herod  Agrippa)  is  evidently  sup- 
posed to  have  died  by  a  judicial  and  preternatural  death,  whereas 
apparently  one  part  of  his  malady  was  the  morbus  pedicalaris  — 
cases  of  which  1  have  myself  circumstantially  known  in  persons 
of  all  ranks ;  one,  for  instance,  being  that  of  a  countess  enor- 
mously rich,  and  the  latest  a  female  servant. 

Note  5.  Page  157. 
'  Profound ; '  —  In  measuring  which,  however,  the  reader 
must  not  allow  himself  to  be  too  much  biassed  by  the  English 
phrase,  '  son  of  perdition.^  This,  and  the  phrase  which  we 
translate  '  damnation,'  have  been  alike  colored  unavoidably  by 
the  particular  intensity  of  the  feeling  associated  with  our  Eng- 
lish use  of  the  words.  Now,  one  great  difficulty  in  translating 
is  to  find  words  that  even  as  to  mere  logical  elements  correspond 
to  the  original  text.  Even  that  is  often  a  trying  problem.  But 
to  find  also  such  words  as  shall  graduate  and  adjust  their  depth 
of  feeling  to  the  scale  of  another  language,  and  that  language  a 
dead  language,  is  many  times  beyond  all  reach  of  human  skill. 

Note  G.    Page  158. 
'  The  family  of  Christ ;  '  for  the  reader  must  not  forget  that 
the  original  meaning  of  the  Latin  word  familia  was  the  sum 
total  of  iha  famuli.    Hence,  whenever  it  is  said  in  an  ancient 


'  NOTES.  177 

classic  that  such  or  such  a  man  had  a  large  family,  or  that  he 
was  kind  to  his  family,  or  was  loved  by  his  family,  always  we 
are  to  understand  not  at  all  his  wife  and  children,  but  the  train 
and  retinue  of  his  domestic  slaves.  Now,  the  relation  of  the 
Apostles  to  their  Master,  and  the  awfulness  of  their  dependency 
upon  him,  which  represented  a  golden  chain  suspending  the 
whole  race  of  man  to  the  heavens  above,  justified,  in  the  first 
place,  that  form  of  expression  which  should  indicate  the  humility 
and  loyalty  that  is  owned  by  servants  to  a  lord  j  whilst,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  tenderness  involved  in  the  relations  expressed 
by  the  English  word  family,  redressed  what  would  else  have 
been  too  austere  in  the  idea,  and  recomposed  the  equilibrium 
between  the  two  forces  of  reverential  awe  and  of  childlike  love 
which  arc  equally  indispensable  to  the  orbicular  perfection  of 
Christian  duty. 

Note  7.  Page  159. 
'Crafty  ways : '  —  Otherwise,  it  must  naturally  occur  to  every 
reader  —  What  powers  could  Judas  furnish  towards  the  arrest  of 
Jesus  beyond  what  the  authorities  in  Jerusalem  already  possess- 
ed ?  But  the  bishop  suggests  that  the  dilemma  was  this :  — 
By  day  it  was  unsafe  to  seize  him,  such  was  the  veneration  of 
the  populace  for  his  person.  If  done  at  all,  it  must  be  done 
during  the  darkness.  But,  precisely  during  those  hours,  Christ 
withdrew  into  solitudes  known  only  to  his  disciples.  So  that  to 
corrupt  one  of  these  was  the  preliminary  step  to  the  discovery  of 
that  secret. 

Note  8.     Page  159. 

Viz.,  St.  Matthew.  Upon  which  the  bishop  notices  the  error 
which  had  crept  into  the  prevailing  text  of  Jeremias  instead  of 
Zecharias.  But  in  the  fourth  century,  some  copies  had  already 
corrected  this  reading  ;  which,  besides,  had  a  traditional  excuse 
in  the  proverbial  saying  that  the  spirit  of  Jeremiah  had  settled 
and  found  a  resting-place  in  Zecharias. 

Note  9.    Page  1G3. 
'Possibilities : '  —  Qutere,  whether  the  true  reading  is  not  more 
probably  '  passibilities, '  i.  «.,  liabilities  to  suffering. 
12 


HUME'S  ARGUMENT  AGAINST  MIRACLES. 

[1839.] 

Hume's  argument  against  miracles  is  simply  this:  — 
Every  possible  event,  however  various  in  its  degree  of 
credibility,  must,  of  necessity,  be  more  credible  when 
it  rests  upon  a  sufficient  cause  lying  within  the  field  of 
what  is  called  nature,  than  when  it  does  not :  more 
credible  when  it  obeys  some  mechanical  cause,  than 
when  it  transcends  such  a  cause,  and  is  miraculous. 

Therefore,  assume  the  resistance  to  credibility,  in 
any  preternatural  occurrence,  as  equal  to  x,  and  the 
very  ideal  or  possible  value  of  human  testimony  as 
no  more  than  x,  in  that  case,  under  the  most  favor- 
able circumstances  conceivable,  the  argument  for  and 
against  a  miracle  will  be  equal  ;  or,  expressing  the 
human  testimony  by  x,  affected  with  the  affirmative 
sign  [-j-x]  ;  and  expressing  the  resistance  to  credibil- 
ity on  the  other  side  of  the  equation,  by  x,  affected 
with  the  negative  sign  [ — .r],  the  two  values  will,  in 
algebraical  language,  destroy  each  other,  and  the  re- 
sult will  be  =  0. 

But,  inasmuch  as  this  expresses  the  value  of  human 
testimony  in  its  highest  or  ideal  form,  a  form  which  is 
never  realized  in  experience,  the    true  result  will  be 


180  ON  home's  argument 

different,  —  there  will  always  be  a  negative  result  m 
—  y  ;  much  or  little  according  to  the  circumstances, 
but  always  enough  to  turn  the  balance  against  believ- 
ing a  miracle.  • 

'  Or  in  other  words,'  said  Hume,  popularizing  his 
argument,  '  it  will  always  be  more  credible  that  the 
reporter  of  a  miracle  should  tell  a  falsehood,  or  should 
himself  have  been  the  dupe  of  appearances,  than  that 
a  miracle  should  have  actually  occurred  —  that  is,  an 
infraction  of  those  natural  laws  (any  or  all)  which 
compose  what  we  call  experience.  For,  assume  the 
utmost  disinterestedness,  veracity,  and  sound  judgment 
in  the  witness,  with  the  utmost  advantage  in  the  cir- 
cumstances for  giving  full  play  to  those  qualities  ;  even 
in  such  a  case  the  value  of  affirmative  testimony  could, 
at  the  very  utmost,  be  equal  to  the  negative  value  on 
the  other  side  the  equation  :  and  the  result  would  be, 
to  keep  my  faith  suspended  in  equilibrio.  But  in  any 
real  case,  ever  likely  to  come  before  us,  the  result  will 
be  worse  ;  for  the  affirmative  testimony  will  be  sure  to 
fall  in  many  ways  below  its  ideal  maximum  ;  leaving, 
therefore,  for  the  final  result  a  considerable  excess  to 
the  negative  side  of  the  equation. 

Section  II. 

Of  the  Argument  as  affected  by  the  Covekt  Limitations 
under  whicu  it  is  presented. 

Such  is  the  Argument :  and,  as  the  first  step  towards 
investigating  its  sanity  and  its  degree  —  its  kind  of 
force,  and  its  quantity  of  force,  we  must  direct  our 
attention  to  the  following  fact,  viz.,  that  amongst  three 


AGAINST  MIRACLES.  181 

separate  conditions  under  which  a  miracle  (or  any 
event  whatever}  might  become  known  to  us,  Hume's 
argument  is  applied  only  to  one.  Assuming  a  miracle 
to  happen  (for  the  possibility  of  a  miracle  is  of 
course  left  open  throughout  the  discussion,  since  any 
argument  against  that  would  at  once  foreclose  every 
question  about  its  communicability),  —  then  it  might 
happen  under  three  several  sets  of  circumstances,  in 
relation  to  our  consciousness.  1st,  It  might  happen  in 
the  presence  of  a  single  witness  —  that  witness  not 
being  ourselves.  This  case  let  us  call  Alpha.  2dly, 
It  might  happen  in  the  presence  of  many  witnesses, — 
witnesses  to  a  vast  amount,  but  still  (as  before)  our- 
selves not  being  amongst  that  multitude.  This  case  let 
us  call  Beta.  And  3dly,  It  might  happen  in  our  own 
presence,  and  fall  within  the  direct  light  of  our  own 
consciousness.     This  case  let  us  call  Gamma. 

Now  these  distinctions  are  important  to  the  whole 
extent  of  the  question.  For  the  2d  case,  which  is  the 
actual  case  of  many  miracles  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament,  at  once  cuts  away  a  large  body  of  sources 
in  which  either  error  or  deceit  could  lurk^  Hume's 
argument  supposes  the  reporter  of  the  miracle  to  be  a 
dupe,  or  the  maker  of  dupes  —  himself  deluded,  or 
wishing  to  delude  othe"rs.  But,  in  the  case  of  the 
thousands  fed  from  a  few  loaves  and  small  fishes,  the 
chances  of  error,  wilful  or  not  wilful,  are  diminished 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  observers ;  *  and  Hume's 

*'Ia  proportion  to  the  number  of  observers.'  —  Perhaps, 
however,  on  the  part  of  Hume,  some  critical  apologist  will  say 
— '  Doubtless  he  was  aware  of  that ;  but  still  the  reporters  of 


182  ON  Hume's  argument 

inference  as  to  the  declension  of  the  affirmative  .r, 
in  relation  to  the  negative  x,  no  longer  applies,  or,  if 
at  all,  with  vastly  diminished  force.  With  respect  to 
the  3d  case,  it  cuts  away  the  whole  argument  at  once 
in  its  very  radix.  For  Hume's  argument  applies  to  the 
communication  of  a  miracle,  and  therefore  to  a  case 
of  testimony.  But,  wherever  the  miracle  falls  within 
direct  personal  cognizance,  there  it  follows  that  no 
question  can  arise  ahout  the  value  of  human  testimony. 
The  affirmative  x,  expressing  the  value  of  testimony, 
disappears  altogether  ;  and  that  side  of  the  equation  is 
possessed  by  a  new  quantity  (viz.,  ourselves  —  our 
own  consciousness)  not  at  all  concerned  in  Hume's 
argument. 

Hence  it  results,  that  of  three  possible  conditions 
under  which  a  miracle  may  be  supposed  to  offer  itself 
to  our  knowledge,  two  are  excluded  from  the  view  of 
Hume's  argument. 

Section  III. 
Wheiuer  tue  second  of  these  Conditions  is  not  expressly 

NOTICED    BY    HuME. 

It  may  seem  so.  But  in  fact  it  is  not.  And  (what 
is  more  to  the  purpose)  wo  are  not  at  liberty  to  con- 
sider it  any  accident  that  it  is  not.     Hume  had   his 

reasons.     Let  us  take  all  in  proper  order  :   1st,  that  it 

^ I 

the  miracle  were  few.  No  matter  how  many  were  present,  the 
witnesses  for  us  are  but  the  Evangelists.'  Yes,  certainly,  the 
Evangelists  ;  and  let  us  add,  all  those  contemporaries  to  whom 
the  Evangelists  silently  appealed.  These  make  up  the  '  multi- 
tude '   contemplated  in  the  second  case. 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  183 

seems  so ;  2dly,  that  in  fact  it  is  not  so  ;  and  Sdly, 
that  is  no  accident,  but  intentional. 

1st.  Hume  seems  to  contemplate  such  a  case,  the 
case  of  a  miracle  witnessed  and  attested  by  a  multitude 
of  persons,  in  the  following  imaginary  miracle  which 
he  proposes  as  a  basis  for  reasoning.  Q«een  Elizabeth, 
as  every  body  will  remember  who  has  happened  to  read 
Lord  Monmouth's  Memoirs,  died  on  the  night  between 
the  last  day  of  1603  and  the  first  day  of  1603  :  this 
could  not  be  forgotten  by  the  reader,  because,  in  fact, 
Lord  M.,  who  was  one  of  Her  Majesty's  nearest  rela- 
tives (being  a  younger  son  of  her  first  cousin  Lord 
Hunsdon),  obtained  his  title  and  subsequent  prefermen*- 
as  a  reward  for  the  furious  ride  he  performed  to  Edin 
burgh  (at  that  time  at  least  440  miles  distant  from  Lon- 
don), without  taking  off"  his  boots,  in  order  to  lay  the 
earliest  tidings  of  the  great  event  at  the  feet  of  her 
successor.  In  reality,  never  did  any  death  cause  so 
much  posting  day  and  night  over  the  high  roads  of 
Europe.  And  the  same  causes  which  made  it  so  in- 
teresting has  caused  it  to  be  the  best  dated  event  in 
modern  history  ;  that  one  which  could  least  be  shaken 
by  any  discordant  evidence  yet  discoverable.  Now, 
says  Hume,  imagine  the  case,  that,  in  spite  of  all  this 
chronological  precision  —  this  precision,  and  this  no- 
toriety of  precision  —  Her  Majesty's  court  physicians 
should  have  chosen  to  propagate  a  story  of  her  res- 
urrection. Imagine  that  these  learned  gentlemen  should 
have  issued  a  bulletin,  declaring  that  Queen  Elizabeth 
had  been  met  in  Greenwich  Park,  or  at  Nonsuch,  on 
May-day  of  1603,  or  in  Westminster,  two  years  after,  by 
the  Lord  Chamberlain  when  detecting  Guy  Faux  —  let 


184  ON  Hume's  argument 

them  even  swear  it  before  twenty  justices  of  the  peace  ; 
I  for  one,  says  Hume,  am  free  to  confess  that  I  would 
not  believe  them.  No,  nor,  to  say  the  truth,  would  we ; 
nor  would  we  advise  our  readers  to  believe  them. 

2dly.  Here,  therefore,  it  would  seem  as  if  Hume 
were  boldly  pressing  his  principles  to  the  very  utter- 
most—  that  is,  were  challenging  a  miracle  as  unten- 
able, though  attested  by  a  multitude.  But,  in  fact,  he 
is  not.  He  only  seems  to  do  so  ;  for,  if  no  number  of 
witnesses  could  avail  anything  in  proof  of  a  miracle, 
why  does  he  timidly  confine  himself  to  the  hypothesis 
of  the  queen's  physicians  only  coming  forward  ?  Why 
not  call  in  the  whole  Privy  Council .''  —  or  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  London  —  the  Sheriffs 
of  Middlesex  —  and  the  Twelve  Judges?  As  to  the 
court  physicians,  though  three  or  four  nominally,  vir- 
tually they  are  but  one  man.  They  have  a  common 
interest,  and  in  two  separate  ways  they  are  liable  to  a 
suspicion  of  collusion:  first,  because  the  same  motives 
which  act  upon  one  probably  act  upon  the  rest.  In 
this  respect,  they  are  under  a  common  influence  ;  sec- 
ondly, because,  if  not  the  motives,  at  any  rate  the 
physicians  themselves,  act  upon  each  other.  In  this 
respect,  they  are  under  a  reciprocal  influence.  They 
are  to  be  reasoned  about  as  one  individual. 

3dly.  As  Hume  could  not  possibly  fail  to  see  all  this, 
we  may  be  sure  that  his  choice  of  witnesses  was  not 
accidental.  In  fact,  his  apparent  carelessness  is  very 
discreet  management.  His  object  was,  under  the  fic- 
tion of  an  independent  multitude,  to  smuggle  in  a  virtual 
unity ;  for  his  court  physicians  are  no  plural  body  in 
effect  and  virtue,  but  a  mere  pleonasm  and  a  tautology. 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  185 

And  in  good  earnest,  Hume  had  reason  enough  for 
his  caution.  How  much  or  how  Httle  testimony  would 
avail  to  establish  a  resurrection  in  any  neutral*  case 
few  people  would  be  willing  to  pronounce  off-hand, 
and,  above  all,  on  a  fictitious  case.  Prudent  men,  in 
such  circumstances,  would  act  as  the  judges  in  our 
English  courts,  who  are  always  displeased  if  it  is  at- 
tempted to  elicit  their  opinions  upon  a  point  of  law  by 
a  proposed  fiction.  And  very  reasonably  ;  for  in  these 
fictitious  cases  all  the  little  circumstances  of  reality  are 
wanting,  and  the  oblique  relations  to  such  circum- 
stances, out  of  which  it  is  that  any  sound  opinion  can 
be  formed.  We  all  know  very  well  what  Hume  is 
after  in  this  problem  of  a  resurrection.  And  his  case 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  resurrection  being  a  perfectly 
fictitious  case,  we  are  at  liberty  to  do  any  one  of  three 
different  things  :  —  either  simply  to  refuse  an  answer  ; 
or,  2dly,  to  give  such  an  answer  as  he  looks  for,  viz., 
to  agree  with  him  in  his  disbelief  under  the  supposed 
contingency ;  without,  therefore,  offering  the  slightest 
prejudice  to  any  scriptural  case  of  resurrection  :  i.  e., 
wc  might  go  along  with  him  in  his  premises,  and  yet 
balk  him  of  his  purpose  ;  or,  3dly,  we  might  even  join 
issue  with  him,  and  peremptorily  challenge  his  verdict 
upon  his  own  fiction.  For  it  is  singular  enough,  that  a 
modern  mathematician  of  eminence  (Mr.  Babbage)  has 
expressly  considered  this  very  imaginary  question  of  a 
resurrection,  and  he  pronounces  the  testimony  of  seven 

*  By  a  neutral  case  is  meant,  1st,  cue  in  ■which  there  is  no 
previous  reason  from  a  great  doctrine  requiring  such  an  event 
for  its  support,  to  expect  a  resurrection ;  2dly,  a  case  belonging 
to  a  period  of  time  in  which  it  is  fully  believed  that  miraculous 
agency  has  ceased. 


186  ON  Hume's  argument 

witnesses,  competent  and  veracious,  and  presumed  to 
have  no  bias,  as  sufficient  to  establish  such  a  miracle. 
Strip  Hume's  case  of  the  ambiguities  already  pointed 
out: — suppose  the  physicians  really  separate  and  inde- 
pendent witnesses  —  not  a  corporation  speaking  by  one 
organ  —  it  will  then  become  a  mere  question  of  degree 
between  the  philosopher  and  the  mathematician  — 
seven  witnesses  ?  or  fifty  ?  or  a  hundred  ?  For  though 
none  of  us  (not  Mr.  Babbage,  we  may  be  sure)  seriously 
believes  in  the  possibility  of  a  resurrection  occurring  in 
these  days,  as  little  can  any  of  us  believe  in  the  possi- 
bility that  seven  witnesses,  of  honor  and  sagacity  (but 
say  seven  hundred)  could  be  found  to  attest  such  an 
event  when  not  occurring. 

But  the  useful  result  from  all  this  is,  that  Mr.  Hume 
is  evidently  aware  of  the  case  Beta,  (of  last  Sect.)  as  a 
distinct  case  from  Alpha  or  from  Gamma,  though  he 
affects  blindness  :  he  is  aware  that  a  multitude  of  com- 
petent witnesses,  no  matter  whether  seven  or  seven 
hundred,  is  able  to  establish  that  which  a  single  witness 
could  not;  in  fact,  that  increasing  the  number  of  wit- 
nesses is  able  to  compensate  increasing  incredibility  in 
the  subject  of  doubt ;  that  even  supposing  this  subject  a 
resurrection  from  the  dead,  there  may  be  assigned  a 
quantity  of  evidence  (z)  greater  than  the  resistance  to 
the  credibility.  And  he  betrays  the  fact,  that  he  has 
one  eye  open  to  his  own  Jesuitism  by  palming  upon  us 
an  apparent  multitude  for  a  real  one,  thus  drawing  all 
the  credit  he  can  from  the  name  of  a  multitude,  and 
yet  evading  the  force  which  he  strictly  knew  to  be 
lodged  in  the  thing  ;  seeking  the  reputation  of  the  case 
Beta,  but  shrinking  from  its  hostile  force. 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  187 

Section  IV. 
Of  the  Argument  as  affected  by  a  Classificatiox  of 

]\IlRACLES. 

Let  us  now  inquire  whether  Hume's  argument  would 
be  affected  by  the  differences  in  miracles  upon  the  most 
general  distribution  of  their  kinds. 

Miracles  may  be  classed  generally  as  inner  or  outer. 

I.  The  inner,  or  those  which  may  be  called  miracles 
for  the  individual,  are  such  as  go  on,  or  may  go  on, 
within  the  separate  personal  consciousness  of  each 
separate  man.  And  it  shows  how  forgetful  people  are 
of  the  very  doctrines  which  they  themselves  profess  as 
Christians,  when  we  consider,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
miracles,  in  this  sense,  are  essential  to  Christianity, 
and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  consider  how  often  it  is 
said  that  the  age  of  miracles  is  past.  Doubtless,  in  the 
sense  of  external  miracles,  all  such  agencies  are  past. 
But  in  the  other  sense,  there  are  distinct  classes  of  the 
supernatural  agency,  which  we  are  now  considering; 
and  these  three  are  held  by  many  Christians ;  two  by 
most  Christians;  and  the  third  by  all.     They  are 

<*.  —  Special  Providences :  which  class  it  is  that 
many  philosophic  Christians  doubt  or  deny. 

/3. —  Grace:  both  predisposing  [by  old  theologians 
caWed  p  rev  en  ient]  and  effectual. 

y.  —  Prayer  considered  as  efficacious. 

Of  these  three  wc  repeat,  that  the  two  last  are  held 
by  most  Christians :  and  yet  it  is  evident  that  both  pre- 
sume a  supernatural  agency.  But  this  agency  exists 
only  where  it  is  sought.  And  even  where  it  does 
exist,  from  its  very  nature  (as  an  interior  experience 
for  each  separate  consciousness)  it  is  incommunicable. 


188  ON  Hume's  argument 

But  that  does  not  defeat  its  purpose.  It  is  of  its 
essence  to  be  incommunicable.'  And,  therefore,  with 
relation  to  Hume's  great  argument,  which  was  de- 
signed, to  point  out  a  vast  hiatus  or  inconsistency  in  the 
divine  economy  — '  Here  is  a  miraculous  agency, 
perhaps,  but  it  is  incommunicable :  it  may  exist,  but 
it  cannot  manifest  itself;  which  defect  neutralizes  it, 
and  defeats  the  very  purpose  of  its  existence'  —  the 
answer  is,  that  as  respects  these  interior  miracles, 
there  is  no  such  inconsistency.  They  are  meant  for 
the  private  forum  of  each  man's  consciousness :  nor 
would  it  have  met  any  human  necessity  to  have  made 
them  communicable.  The  language  of  Scripture  is, 
that  he  who  wishes  experimentally  to  know  the  changes 
that  may  be  accomplished  by  prayer,  must  pray.  In 
that  way  only,  and  not  by  communication  of  knowledge 
from  another,  could  he  understand  it  as  a  practical 
effect.  And  to  understand  it  not  practically,  but  only 
in  a  speculative  way,  could  not  meet  any  religious 
wish,  but  merely  an  irreligious  curiosity. 

As  respects  one  great  division  of  miraculous  agency, 
it  is  clear,  therefore,  that  Hume's  argument  does  not 
apply.  The  arrow  glances  past :  not  so  much  missing 
its  aim  as  taking  a  false  one.  The  hiatus  which  it 
supposes,  the  insulation  and  incommunicability  which 
it  charges  upon  the  miraculous  as  a  capital  oversight, 
was  part  of  the  design  :  such  mysterious  agencies  were 
meant  to  be  incommunicable,  and  for  the  same  reason 
which  shuts  up  each  man's  consciousness  into  a  silent 
world  of  its  own  —  separate  and  inaccessible  to  all 
other  consciousnesses.  U  a  communication  is  thrown 
open  by  such  agencies  between  the  separate  spirit  of 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  189 

each  man  and  the  supreme  Spirit  of  the  universe,  then 
the  end  is  accompUshed  :  and  it  is  part  of  that  end  to 
close  this  communication  against  all  other  cognizance. 
So  far  Hume  is  baffled.  The  supernatural  agency  is 
incommunicable  :  it  ought  to  be  so.  That  is  its  per- 
fection. 

II.  But  now,  as  respects  the  other  great  order  of 
miracles  —  viz.,  the  external^  first  of  all,  we  may- 
remark  a  very  important  subdivision  :  miracles,  in  this 
sense,  subdivide  into  two  most  different  orders — 1st, 
Evidential  miracles,  which  simply  prove  Christianity. 
2d,  Constituent  miracles,  which,  in  a  partial  sense, 
are  Christianity.  And,  perhaps,  it  may  turn  out  that 
Hume's  objection,  if  applicable  at  all,  is  here  applicable 
in  a  separate  way  and  with  a  varying  force. 

The  first  class,  the  evidential  miracles,  are  all  those 
which  were  performed  merely  as  evidences  (whether 
simply  as  indications,  or  as  absolute  demonstrations)  of 
the- divine  power  which  upheld  Christianity.  The 
second  class,  the  constituent  miracles,  are  those  which 
constitute  a  part  of  Christianity.  Two  of  these  are  ab- 
solutely indispensable  to  Christianity,  and  cannot  be 
separated  from  it  even  in  thought,  viz.,  the  miraculous 
birth  of  our  Saviour,  and  his  miraculous  resurrection. 
The  first  is  essential  upon  this  ground  —  that  unless 
Christ  had  united  the  two  natures  (divine  and  human) 
he  could  not  have  made  the  satisfaction  required  :  not 
being  human,  then,  indeed,  he  might  have  had  power 
•  to  go  through  the  mysterious  sufferings  of  the  satisfac- 
tion :  but  how  would  that  have  applied  to  man  ?  It 
would  have  been  perfect,  but  how  would  it  have  been 
relevant }     Not  being  divine,  then  indeed  any  satisfac- 


190  ON  Hume's  argument 

tion  he  could  make  would  be  relevant :  but  how  would 
it  have  been  perfect  ?  The  mysterious  and  super- 
natural birth,  therefore,  was  essential,  as  a  capacitation 
for  the  work  to  be  performed  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  mysterious  death  and  consequences  were  essential, 
as  the  very  work  itself. 

Now,  therefore,  having  made  this  distinction,  we  may 
observe,  that  the  first  class  of  miracles  was  occasional 
and  polemic  :  it  was  meant  to  meet  a  special  hostility 
incident  to  the  birth-struggles  of  a  new  religion,  and  a 
religion  which,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  was  true, 
stood  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  world ;  of  a  religion 
which,  in  its  first  stage,  had  to  fight  against  a  civil 
power  in  absolute  possession  of  the  civilized  earth,  and 
backed  by  seventy  legions.  This  being  setded,  it  fol- 
lows, that  if  Hume's  argument  were  applicable  in  its 
whole  strength  to  the  evidential  miracles,  no  result  of 
any  importance  could  follow.  It  is  clear  that  a  Chris- 
tianized earth  never  can  want  polemic  miracles  again  ; 
polemic  miracles  were  wanted  for  a  transitional  state, 
but  such  a  state  cannot  return.  Polemic  miracles  were 
wanted  for  a  state  of  conflict  with  a  dominant  idolatry. 
It  was  Christianity  militant,  and  militant  with  childlike 
arms,  against  Paganism  triumphant.  But  Christianity, 
in  league  with  civilization,  and  resting  on  the  powers  of 
this  earth  allied  with  her  own,  never  again  can  speak 
to  idolatrous  man  except  from  a  station  of  infinite  su- 
periority. If,  therefore,  these  evidential  miracles  are 
incommunicable  as  respecfs  their  proofs  to  after  gener- 
ations, neither  are  they  wanted. 

Still  it  will  be  urged  —  Were  not  the  miracles  meant 
for  purposes  ulterior  to  the  transitional  state  ?     Were 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  191 

they  not  meant  equally  for  the  polemic  purpose  of  con- 
futing hostility  at  the  moment,  and  of  propping  the 
faith  of  Christians  in  all  after  ages  ?  The  growing 
opinion  amongst  reflecting  Christians  is,  that  they  were 
not  :  that  the  evidential  miracles  accomplished  their 
whole  purpose  in  their  own  age.  Something  of  super- 
natural agency,  visibly  displayed,  was  wanted  for  the 
first  establishment  of  a  new  faith.  But,  once  estab- 
lished, it  was  a  false  faith  only  that  could  need  this  ex- 
ternal support.  Christianity  could  not  unroot  itself 
now,  though  every  trace  of  evidential  miracle  should 
have  vanished.  Being  a  true  religion,  once  rooted  in 
man's  knowledge  and  man's  heart,  it  is  self-sustained  ; 
it  never  could  be  eradicated. 

But,  waiving  that  argument,  it  is  evident,  that  what- 
ever becomes  of  the  evidential  miracles,  Christianity 
never  can  dispense  with  those  transcendent  miracles 
which  we  have  called  constituent^ — those  which  do  not 
so  much  demonstrate  Christianity  as  are  Christianity  in 
a  large  integral  section.  Now  as  to  the  way  in  which 
Hume's  argument  could  apply  to  these,  we  shall  re- 
serve what  we  have  to  say  until  a  subsequent  section. 
Meantime,  with  respect  to  the  other  class,  the  simply 
evidential  miracles,  it  is  plain,  that  if  ever  they  should 
be  called  for  again,  then,  as  to  them^  Hume's  argument 
will  be  evaded,  or  not,  according  to  their  purpose.  If 
their  function  regards  an  individual,  it  will  be  no  just 
objection  to  them  that  they  are  incommunicable.  If  it 
regards  a  multitude  or  a  nation,  then  the  same  power 
which  utters  the  miracle  can  avail  for  its  manifestation 
before  a  multitude,  as  happened  in  the  days  of  the  New 
Testament,   and    then   is  realized    the   case   Beta   of 


192  ON  Hume's  argument 

Sect.  II.  And  If  ijt  is  still  objected,  that  even  in  that 
case  there  could  be  no  sufficient  way  of  propagating 
the  miracle,  with  its  evidence,  to  other  times  or  places, 
the  answer  must  be,  — 

1st.  That  supposing  the  purpose  merely  polemic, 
that  purpose  is  answered  without  such  a  propagation. 

2dly.  That,  supposing  the  purpose,  by  possibility,  an 
ulterior  purpose,  stretching  into  distant  ages,  even  then 
our  modern  arts  of  civilization,  printing,  &c.,  give  us 
advantages  which  place  a  remote  age  on  a  level  with 
the  present  as  to  the  force  of  evidence  ;  and  that  even 
the  defect  of  autopsy  may  be  compensated  by  sufficient 
testimony  of  a  multitude,  it  is  evident  that  Hume  him- 
self felt,  by  his  evasion  in  the  case  of  the  imaginary 
Elizabethan  miracle  proposed  by  himself 

RECAPITULATION. 

Now  let  us  recapitulate  the  steps  we  have  made  be- 
fore going  on  to  the  rest. 

1st.  We  have  drawn  into  notice  [Sect.  II.]  the  case 
Beta.,  —  overlooked  by  Hume  in  his  argument,  but  ap- 
parently not  overlooked  in  his  consciousness, —  the  case 
where  a  multitude  of  witnesses  overrules  the  incommu- 
nicability  attaching  to  a  single  witness. 

2dly.  We  have  drawn  into  notice  the  class  of  inter- 
nal miracles,  —  miracles  going  on  in  the  inner  econ- 
omy of  every  Christian's  heart ;  for  it  is  essential  to  a 
Christian  to  allow  of  prayer.  He  cannot  he  a  Christian 
if  he  should  condemn  prayer ;  and  prayer  cannot  hope 
to  produce  its  object  without  a  miracle.  And  to  such 
miracles  Hume's  argument,  the  argument  of  incommu- 
nicability,  is  inapplicable.     They  do  not  seek  to  trans- 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  193 

plant  themselves  ;  every  man's  personal  experience  in 
this  respect  is  meant  for  himself  alone. 

3dly.  Even  amongst  mir.icles  not  internal,  we  have 
shown  —  that  if  one  class  (the  merely  evidential  and 
polemic)  are  incommunicable,  i.  e,  not  capable  of  prop- 
agation to  a  remote  age  or  place,  they  have  sufficiently 
fulfilled  their  Immediate  purpose  by  their  immediate 
effect.  But  such  miracles  are  alien  and  accidental  to 
Christianity.  Christ  himself  reproved  severely  those 
who  sought  such  signs,  as  a  wicked,  unbelieving  gen- 
eration ;  and  afterwards  he  reproved,  with  a  most 
pathetic  reproach,  that  one  of  his  own  disciples  who 
demanded  such  a  sign.  But  besides  these  evidential 
miracles,  we  noticed  also, 

4thly.  The  constituent  miracles  of  Christianity  ;  upon 
which,  as  regarded  Hume's  argument,  we  reserved 
ourselves  to  the  latter  section :  and  to  these  we  now 
address  ourselves. 

But  first  we  premise  this 

Lemma:  —  That  an  a  priori  (or,  as  we  shall  show, 
an  a  posteriori)  reason  for  believing  a  miracle,  or  for 
expecting  a  miracle,  will  greatly  disturb  the  valuation 
of  X  (that  is,  the  abstract  resistance  to  credibility),  as 
assumed  in  Hume's  argument.  This  is  the  centre  in 
which  we  are  satisfied,  lurks  that  TTQmTov  y.'iv3og  which 
Hume  himself  suspected  :  and  we  add,  that  as  a  vast 
number  of  witnesses  (according  to  a  remark  made  in 
Sect.  II.)  will  virtually  operate  as  a  reduction  of  the 
value  allowed  to  x,  until  x  may  be  made  to  vanish  alto- 
gether,—  so  in  the  reverse  order,  any  material  reduc- 
tion of  value  in  x  will  virtually  operate  exactly  as  the 
13 


194  ON  Hume's  argument 

multiplication  of  witnesses  ;  and  the  case  Alpha  will  be 
raised  to  the  case  Beta. 

This  Lemma  being  stated  as  a  point  of  appeal  in  what 
follows,  we  proceed  to 

Section  V. 
On  Hume's  Argument,  as  affected  by  the  Pceposb. 

This  topic  is  so  impressive,  and  indeed  awful,  in  its 
relation  to  Christianity,  that  we  shall  not  violate  its  ma- 
jesty by  doing  more  than  simply  stating  the  case.  All 
the  known  or  imagined  miracles  that  ever  were  recorded 
as  flowing  from  any  Pagan  origin,  were  miracles —  1, 
of  ostentation  ;  2,  of  ambition  and  rivalship  ;  3,  ex- 
pressions of  power;  or,  4,  were  blind  accidents.  Not 
even  in  pretence  were  any  of  them  more  than  that. 
First  and  last  came  the  Christian  miracles,  on  behalf  of 
a  moral  purpose.  The  purpose  was  to  change  man's 
idea  of  his  own  nature  ;  and  to  change  his  idea  of 
God's  nature.  Many  other  purposes  might  be  stated  ; 
but  all  were  moral.  Now  to  any  other  wieldcr  of 
supernatural  power,  real  or  imaginary,  it  never  had 
occurred  by  way  of  pretence  even,  that  in  working 
miracles  he  had  a  moral  object.  And  here,  indeed, 
comes  in  the  argument  of  Christ  with  tremendous  effect 
—  that,  whilst  all  other  miracles  might  be  liable  to  the 
suspicion  of  having  been  effected  by  alliance  with 
darker  agencies,  his  only  (as  sublime  moral  agencies 
for  working  the  only  revolution  that  ever  was  worked  in 
man's  nature)  could  not  be  liable  to  such  a  suspicion ; 
since,  if  an  evil  spirit  would  lend  himself  to  the  propa- 
gation of  good  in  its  most  transcendent  form,  in  that 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  195 

case  the  kingdom    of    darkness    would  be    '  divided 
against  itself.' 

Here,  then,  is  an  d  posteriori  reason,  derived  from 
the  whole  subsequent  life  and  death  of  the  miracle- 
worker,  for  diminishing  the  value  of  a;  according  to  the 
Lemma. 

Section  VI. 

On  the  Argument  of  Hume  as  affected  by  Matters  of 
Fact. 

It  is  a  very  important  axiom  of  the  schoolmen  in  this 
case — that,  a  posse  ad  esse  nan  vaJet  consequential 
you  can  draw  no  inference  from  the  possibility  of  a 
thing  to  its  reality,  but  that,  in  the  reverse  order,  ah 
esse  ad  posse,  the  inference  is  inevitable  :  if  it  is,  or 
if  it  ever  has  been  —  then  of  necessity  it  can  be. 
Hume  himself  would  have  admitted,  that  the  proof  of 
any  one  miracle,  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,  at 
once  lowered  the  —  x  of  his  argument  [i.  e.  the  value 
of  the  resistance  to  our  faith)  so  as  to  affect  the  whole 
force  of  that  argument,  as  applying  to  all  other  mira- 
cles whatever  having  a  rational  and  an  adequate 
purpose.  Now  it  happens  that  we  have  two  cases  of 
miracles  which  can  be  urged  in  this  view :  one  a  pos' 
teriori,  derived  from  our  historical  experience,  and  the 
other  a  priori.     We  will  take  them  separately. 

1.  The  a  priori  miracle  we  call  such  —  not  (as  the 
unphilosophic  may  suppose)  because  it  occurred  pre- 
viously to  our  own  period,  or  from  any  consideration 
of  time  whatever,  but  in  the  logical  meaning,  as  having 
been  derived  from  our  reason  in  opposition  to  our  ex- 
perience.    This   order  of  miracle  it   is   manifest  that 


196  ON  Hume's  argument 

Hume  overlooked  altogether,  because  he  says  express- 
ly that  we  have  nothing  to  appeal  to  in  this  dispute 
except  our  human  experience.  But  it  happens  that  we 
have ;  and  precisely  where  the  possibilities  of  experi- 
ence desert  us.  We  know  nothing  through  experience 
(whether  physical  or  historical)  of  what  preceded  or 
accompanied  the  first  introduction  of  man  upon  this 
earth.  But  in  the  absence  of  all  experience,  our 
reason  informs  us  —  that  he  must  have  been  introduced 
by  a  supernatural  agency.  Thus  far  we  are  sure. 
For  the  sole  alternative  is  one  which  would  be  equally 
mysterious,  and  besides,  contradictory  to  the  marks  of 
change  —  of  transition  —  and  of  perishableness  in  our 
planet  itself,  —  viz.  the  hypothesis  of  an  eternal  un- 
originated  race :  and  that  is  more  confounding  to  the 
human  intellect  than  any  miracle  whatever :  so  that, 
even  tried  merely  as  one  probability  against  another, 
the  miracle  would  have  the  advantage.  The  miracle 
supposes  a  supersensual  and  transcendent  cause.  The 
opposite  hypothesis  supposes  effects  without  any  cause. 
In  short,  upon  any  hypothesis,  we  are  driven  \o  sup- 
pose—  and  compelled  to  suppose  —  a  miraculous  state 
as  introductory  to  the  earliest  state  of  nature.  The 
planet,  indeed,  might  form  itself  by  mechanical  laws 
of  motion,  repulsion,  attraction,  and  central  forces. 
But  man  could  not.  Life  could  not.  Organization, 
even  animal  organization,  might  perhaps  be  explained 
out  of  mechanical  causes.  But  life  could  not.  Life 
is  itself  a  great  miracle.  Suppose  the  nostrils  formed 
by  mechanic  agency ;  still  the  breath  of  life  could  not 
enter  them  without  a  supernatural  force.  And  a  for- 
tiori, man,  with  his  intellectual  and  moral  capacities, 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  197 

could  not  arise  upon  this  planet  without  a  higher 
agency  than  any  lodged  in  that  nature  which  is  the 
object  of  our  present  experience.  This  kind  of  miracle, 
as  deduced  by  our  reason,  and  not  witnessed  experi- 
mentally, or  drawn  from  any  past  records,  we  call  an 
d  priori  miracle. 

2.  But  there  is  another  kind  of  miracle,  which  Hume 
ought  not  to  have  overlooked,  but  which  he  has,  how- 
ever, overlooked  :  he  himself  observes,  very  justly, 
that  prophecy  is  a  distinct  species  of  the  miraculous ; 
and,  no  doubt,  he  neglected  the  Scriptural  Prophecies, 
as  supposing  them  all  of  doubtful  interpretation,  or 
believing  with  Porphyry,  that  such  as  are  not  doubtful, 
must  have  been  posterior  to  the  event  which  they  point 
to.  It  happens,  however,  that  there  are  some  prophe- 
cies which  cannot  be  evaded  or  '  refused,'  some  to 
which  neither  objection  will  apply.  One,  we  will  here 
cite,  by  way  of  example  :  —  The  prophecy  of  Isaiah, 
describing  the  desolation  of  Babylon,  was  delivered 
about  seven  centuries  before  Christ.  A  century  or  so 
after  Christ,  comes  Porphyry,  and  insinuates,  that  all 
the  prophecies  alike  might  be  comparatively  recent 
forgeries  !  Well,  for  a  moment  suppose  it :  but,  at 
least,  they  existed  in  the  days  of  Porphyry.  Now,  it 
happens,  that  more  than  two  centuries  after  Porphyry, 
we  have  good  evidence,  as  to  Babylon,  that  it  had  not 
yet  reached  the  stage  of  utter  desolation  predicted  by 
Isaiah.  Four  centuries  after  Christ,  we  learn  from  a 
Father  of  the  Christian  Church,  who  had  good  personal 
information  as  to  its  condition,  that  it  was  then  become 
a  solitude,  but  a  solitude  in  good  preservation  as  a 
royal  park.     The  vast  city  had   disppearcd,  and  the 


198  ON  Hume's  argument 

murmur  of  myriads  :  but  as  yet  there  were  no  signs 
whatever  of  ruin  or  desolation.  Not  until  our  own 
nineteenth  century  was  the  picture  of  Isaiah  seen  in 
full  realization  —  then  lay  the  lion  basking  at  noonday 
—  then  crawled  the  serpents  from  their  holes  ;  and  at 
night  the  whole  region  echoed  with  the  wild  cries  pecu- 
liar to  arid  wildernesses.  The  transformations,  there- 
fore, of  Babylon,  have  been  going  on  slowly  through 
a  vast  number  of  centuries  until  the  perfect  accom- 
plishment of  Isaiah's  picture.  Perhaps  they  have 
travelled  through  a  course  of  much  more  than  two 
thousand  years :  and  from  the  glimpses  we  gain  of 
Babylon  at  intervals,  we  know  for  certain  that  Isaiah 
had  been  dead  for  many  centuries  before  his  vision 
could  have  even  begun  to  realize  itself.  But  then, 
says  an  objector,  the  final  ruins  of  great  empires  and 
cities  may  be  safely  assumed  on  general  grounds  of 
observation.  Hardly,  however,  if  they  happen  to  be 
seated  in  a  region  so  fertile  as  Mesopotamia,  and  on  a 
great  river  like  the  Euphrates.  But  allow  this  possi- 
bility—  allow  the  natural  disappearance  of  Babylon  in 
a  long  course  of  centuries.  In  other  cases  the  disap- 
pearance is  gradual,  and  at  length  perfect.  No  traces 
can  now  be  found  of  Carthage  ;  none  of  Memphis  ;  or, 
if  you  suppose  something  peculiar  to  Mesopotamia,  no 
traces  can  be  found  of  Nineveh,  or  on  the  other  side 
of  that  region:  none  of  other  great  cities  —  Roman, 
Parthian,  Persian,  Median,  in  that  same  region  or 
adjacent  regions.  Babylon  only  is  circumstantially 
described  by  Jewish  prophecy  as  long  surviving  itself 
in  a  state  of  visible  and  audible  desolation  :  and  to 
Babylon  only  such  a  description  applies.     Other  pro- 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  199 

phecies  might  be  cited  with  the  same  result.     But  this 
is  enough.     And  here  is  an  a  posteriori  miracle. 

Now,  observe  :  these  two  orders  of  miracle,  by  their 
very  nature,  absolutely  evade  the  argument  of  Mume. 
The  incommunicability  disappears  altogether.  The 
value  of  — X  absolutely  vanishes  and  becomes  ■=.  0. 
The  human  reason  being  immutable,  suggests  to  every 
age,  renews  and  regenerates  for  ever,  the  necessary 
inference  of  a  miraculous  state  antecedent  to  the 
natural  state.  And,  for  the  miracles  of  prophecy, 
these  require  no  evidence  and  depend  upon  none : 
they  carry  their  own  evidence  along  with  them  ;  they 
utter  their  own  testimonies,  and  they  are  continually  re- 
inforcing them  ;  for,  probably,  every  successive  period 
of  time  reproduces  fresh  cases  of  prophecy  completed. 
But  even  one,  like  that  of  Babylon,  realizes  the  case 
of  Bela  (Sect.  II.)  in  its  most  perfect  form.  History, 
which  attests  it,  is  the  voice  of  every  generation, 
checked  and  countersigned  in  effect  by  all  the  men 
who  compose  it. 

Section  VII. 

Of  the  Argument  as  affected  by  the  particular  Worker 
OF  THE  Miracles. 

This  is  the  last  '  moment,'  to  use  the  language  of 
Mechanics^  which  we  shall  notice  in  this  discussion. 
And  here  there  is  a  remarkable  petilio  principii  in 
Hume's  management  of  his  argument.  He  says, 
roundly,  that  it  makes  no  difference  at  all  if  God  were 
connected  with  the  question  as  the  author  of  the  sup- 
posed miracles.  And  why  t  Because,  says  he,  we 
know  God  only  by  experience  —  meaning  as  involved 


200  ON  Hume's  argument 

in  nature  —  and,  therefore,  that  in  so  far  as  miracles 
transcend  our  experience  of  nature,  they  transcend  by 
implication  our  experience  of  God.  But  the  very 
question  under  discussion  is  —  whether  God  did,  or  did 
not,  manifest  himself  to  human  experience  in  the 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  But  at  all  events, 
the  idea  of  God  in  itself  already  includes  the  notion  of 
a  power  to  work  miracles,  whether  that  power  were 
ever  exercised  or  not ;  and  as  Sir  Isaac  Newton  thought 
that  space  might  be  the  sensorium  of  God,  so  may  we 
(and  with  much  more  philosophical  propriety)  affirm 
that  the  miraculous  and  the  transcendent  is  the  very 
nature  of  God.  God  being  assumed,  it  is  as  easy  to 
believe  in  a  miracle  issuing  from  him  as  in  any  opera- 
tion according  to  the  laws  of  nature  (which,  after  all, 
is  possibly  in  many  points  only  the  nature  of  our 
planet)  :  it  is  as  easy,  because  either  mode  of  action 
is  indifTerent  to  him.  Doubtless  this  argument,  when 
addressed  to  an  Atheist,  loses  its  force  ;  because  he 
refuses  to  assume  a  God.  But  then,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  Hume's  argument  itself 
does  not  stand  on  the  footing  of  Atheism.  He  sup- 
poses it  binding  on  a  Theist.  Now  a  Theist,  in  starting 
from  the  idea  of  God,  grants,  of  necessity,  the  plenary 
power  of  miracles  as  greater  and  more  awful  than  man 
could  even  comprehend.  All  he  wants  is  a  sufficient 
motive  for  such  transcendent  agencies ;  but  this  is 
supplied  in  excess  (as  regards  what  we  have  called 
the  constituent  miracles  of  Christianity)  by  the  case  of 
a  religion  that  was  to  revolutionize  the  moral  nature  of 
man.  The  moral  nature  — the  kingdom  of  the  will  — 
is  esentially  opposed  to  the  kingdom  of  nature  even  by 


AGAINST    MIRACLES.  201 

the  confession  of  irreligious  philosophers  ;  and,  there- 
fore, being  itself  a  supersensual  field,  it  seems  more 
reasonably  adapted  to  agencies  supernatural  than  such 
as  are  natural. 

GENERAL    RECAPITULATION. 

In  Hume's  argument,  —  ?■,  which  expresses  the  re- 
sistance to  credibility  in  a  miracle,  is  valued  as  of 
necessity  equal  to  the  very  maximum  or  ideal  of  hu- 
man testimony ;  which,  under  the  very  best  circum- 
stances, might  be  equal  to  -j-  r,  in  no  case  more,  and 
in  all  known  cases  less.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  have, 
endeavored  to  show  — 

1.  That,  because  Hume  contemplates  only  the  case 
of  a  single  witness,  it  will  happen  that  the  case  Beta 
[of  Sect.  II.]  where  a  multitude  of  witnesses  exist, 
may  greatly  exceed  -j-x  ;  and  with  a  sufficient  multi- 
tude must  exceed  x. 

2.  That  in  the  case  of  internal  miracles  —  opera- 
tions of  divine  agency  within  the  mind  and  conscience 
of  the  individual  —  Hume's  argument  is  necessarily 
set  aside:  the  evidence,  the  -f~^'  ^^  perfect  for  the 
individual,  and  the  miraculous  agency  is  meant  for 
him  only. 

3.  That,  in  the  case  of  one  primary  miracle,  viz. 
the  first  organization  of  man  on  this  planet,  the  evi- 
dence greatly  transcends  x :  because  here  it  is  an 
evidence  not  derived  from  experience  at  all,  but  from 
the  reflecting  reason :  and  the  miracle  has  the  same 
advantage  over  facts  of  experience,  that  a  mathe- 
matical truth  has  over  the  truths  which  rest  on  induc- 
tion. It  is  the  difference  between  must  be  and  is  — 
between  the  inevitable  and  the  merely  actual. 


202     ON  Hume's  argument  against  miracles. 

4.  That,  in  the  case  of  another  order  of  miracles, 
viz.  prophecies,  Hume's  argument  is  again  overruled; 
because  the  -\-x  in  this  case,  the  affirmative  evidence, 
is  not  derived  from  human  testimony.  Some  prophe- 
cies are  obscure  ;  they  may  be  fulfilled  possibly  with- 
out men's  being  aware  of  the  fulfilment.  But  others, 
as  that  about  the  fate  of  Babylon  —  about  the  fate  of 
the  Arabs  (the  children  of  Ishmael)  — about  the  fate 
of  the  Jews  —  are  not  of  a  nature  to  be  misunder- 
stood ;  and  the  evidence  wliich  attends  them  is  not 
alien,  but  is  intrinsic,  and  developed  by  themselves  in 
successive  stages  from  age  to  age. 

5.  That,  because  the  primary  miracle  in  No.  3, 
argues  at  least  a  power  competent  to  the  working  of  a 
miracle,  for  any  after  miracle  we  have  only  to  seek  a 
sufficient  motive.  Now,  the  objects  of  the  Christian 
revelation  were  equal  at  the  least  to  those  of  the  origi- 
nal creation.  In  fact,  Christianity  may  be  considered 
as  a  second  creation  ;  and  the  justifying  cause  for  the 
constituent  miracles  of  Christianity  is  even  to  us  as 
apparent  as  any  which  could  have  operated  at  the 
primary  creation.  The  epigenesis  was,  at  least,  as 
grand  an  occasion  as  the  genesis.  Indeed,  it  is  evident, 
for  example,  that  Christianity  itself  could  not  have 
existed  without  the  constituent  miracle  of  the  Resur- 
rection ",  because  without  that  there  would  have  been 
no  conquest  over  death.  And  here,  as  in  No.  3,  -\-  x 
is  derived  —  not  from  any  experience,  and  therefore 
cannot  be  controlled  by  that  sort  of  hostile  experience 
which  Hume's  argument  relies  on;  but  is  derived  from 
the  reason  which  transcends  all  experience. 


CASUISTRY. 

[1839.] 

PART    I. 

It  is  remarkable,  in  the  sense  of  being  noticeable 
and  interesting,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  being  surpris- 
ing, that  Casuistry  has  fallen  into  disrepute  througbout 
all  Protestant  lands.  This^  disrepute  is  a  result  partly 
due  to  the  upright  morality  which  usually  follows  in 
the  train  of  the  Protestant  faith.  So  far  it  is  honorable, 
and  an  evidence  of  superior  illuminaiion.  But,  in  the 
excess  to  which  it  has  been  pushed,  we  may  trace  also 
a  blind  and  somewhat  bigoted  reaction  of  the  horror 
inspired  by  the  abuses  of  the  Popish  Confessional. 
Unfortunately  for  the  interests  of  scientific  ethics,  the 
first  cultivators  of  casuistry  had  been  those  who  kept 
in  view  the  professional  service  of  auricular  confes- 
sion. Their  purpose  was  —  to  assist  the  reverend 
confessor  in  appraising  the  quality  of  doubtful  actions, 
in  order  that  he  might  properly  adjust  his  scale  of 
counsel,  of  warning,  of  reproof,  and  of  penance. 
Some,  therefore,  in  pure  simplicity  and  conscientious 
discharge  of  the  duty  they  had  assumed,  but  others, 
from  lubricity  of  morals  or  the  irritations  of  curiosity, 
pushed  their  investigations  into  unhallowed  paths  of 
speculation.  They  held  aloft  a  torch  for  exploring 
guilty  recesses  of  human  life,  which  it  is  far  better  for 


204  CASUISTRY. 

US  all  to  leave  in  their  original  darkness.  Crimes  that 
were  often  all  but  imaginary,  extravagances  of  erring 
passion  that  would  never  have  been  known  as  possi- 
bilities to  the  young  and  the  innocent,  were  thus  pub- 
lished in  their  most  odious  details.  At  first,  it  is  true, 
the  decent  draperies  of  a  dead  language  were  sus- 
pended before  these  abominations  :  but  sooner  or  later 
some  knave  was  found,  on  mercenary  motives,  to  tear 
away  this  partial  veil  ;  and  thus  the  vernacular  litera- 
ture of  most  nations  in  Southern  Europe,  was  grad- 
ually polluted  with  revelations  that  had  been  originally 
made  in  the  avowed  service  of  religion.  Indeed,  there 
was  one  aspect  of  such  books  which  proved  even  more 
extensively  disgusting.  Speculations  pointed  to  mon- 
strous offences,  bore  upon  their  very  face  and  frontis- 
piece the  intimation  that  they  related  to  cases  rare  and 
anomalous.  But  sometimes  casuistry  pressed  into  the 
most  hallowed  recesses  of  common  domestic  life. 
The  delicacy  of  youthful  wives,  for  example,  was  often 
not  less  grievously  shocked  than  the  manliness  of  hus- 
bands, by  refinements  of  monkish  subtlety  applied  to 
cases  never  meant  for  relisfious  cognisance  —  but  far 
better  left  to  the  decision  of  good  feeling,  of  nature, 
and  of  pure  household  morality.  Even  this  revolting 
use  of  casuistry,  however,  did  less  to  injure  its  name 
and  pretensions  than  a  persuasion,  pretty  generally  dif- 
fused, that  the  main  purpose  and  drift  of  this  science 
was  a  sort  of  hair-splitting  process,  by  which  doubts 
might  be  applied  to  the  plainest  duties  of  life,  or  ques- 
tions raised  on  the  extent  of  their  obligations,  for  the 
single  benefit  of  those  who  sought  to  evade  them.  A 
casuist  was  viewed,  in  short,  as  a  kind  of  lawyer  or 


CASUISTRY.  205 

special  pleader  in  morals,  such  as  those  who,  in  Lon- 
don, are  known  as  Old  Bailey  practitioners,  called  in 
to  manage  desperate  cases  —  to  suggest  all  available 
advantages  —  to  raise  doubts  or  distinctions  where  sim- 
ple morality  saw  no  room  for  either  —  and  generally 
to  teach  the  art,  in  nautical  phrase,  of  sailing  as  near 
the  wind  as  possible,  without  fear  of  absolutely  foun- 
dering. 

Meantime  it  is  certain  that  casuistry,  when  soberly 
applied,  is  not  only  a  beneficial  as  well  as  a  very  inter- 
esting study  ;  but  that,  by  whatever  title,  it  is  absolutely 
indispensable  to  the  practical  treatment  of  morals. 
We  may  reject  the  name  ;  the  thing  we  cannot  reject. 
And  accordingly  the  custom  has  been,  in  all  English 
treatises  on  ethics,  to  introduce  a  good  deal  of  cas- 
uistry under  the  idea  of  special  illustration,  but  with- 
out any  reference  to  casuistry  as  a  formal  branch  of 
research.  Indeed,  as  society  grows  complex,  the  uses 
of  casuistry  become  more  urgent.  Even  Cicero  could 
not  pursue  his  theme  through  such  barren  generaliza- 
tions as  entirely  to  evade  all  notice  of  special  cases  : 
and  Paley  has  given  the  chief  interest  to  his  very  loose 
investigations  of  morality,  by  scattering  a  selection  of 
such  cases  over  the  whole  field  of  his  discussion. 

The  necessity  of  casuistry  might,  in  fact,  be  de- 
duced from  the  very  origin  and  genesis  of  the  word. 
First  came  the  general  law  or  rule  of  action.  This 
was  like  the  major  proposition  of  a  syllogism.  But 
next  came  a  special  instance  or  case,  so  stated  as  to 
indicate  whether  it  did  or  did  not  fall  under  the  general 
rule.  This,  again,  was  exactly  the  minor  proposition 
in  a  syllogism.     For  example,  in  logic  we  say,  as  the 


206  CASUISTRY. 

major  proposition  in  a  syllogism,  Man  is  mortal.  This 
is  the  rule.  And  then  '  subsuming'  (such  is  the  tech- 
nical phrase  —  subsuming)  Socrates  under  the  rule  by 
a  minor  proposition  —  viz.  Socrates  is  a  man  —  we 
are  able  mediately  to  connect  him  with  the  predicate 
of  that  rule,  viz,  ergo.,  Socrates  is  mortal.^  Precisely 
upon  this  model  arose  casuistry.  A  general  rule,  or 
major  proposition,  was  laid  down — suppose  that  he 
who  killed  any  human  being,  except  under  the  pallia- 
tions X,  Y,  Z,  was  a  murderer.  Then  in  a  minor  prop- 
osition, the  special  case  of  the  suicide  was  considered. 
It  was  affirmed,  or  it  was  denied,  that  his  case  fell 
under  some  one  of  the  palliations  assigned.  And  then, 
finally,  accordingly  to  the  negative  or  affirmative  shape 
of  this  minor  proposition,  it  was  argued,  in  the  conclu- 
sion, that  the  suicide  was  or  was  not,  a  murderer. 
Out  of  these  cases,  i.  e.  oblique  deflexions  from  the 
universal  rule  (which  is  also  the  grammarian's  sense  of 
the  word  case)  arose  casuistry. 

After  morality  has  done  its  very  utmost  in  clearing 
up  the  grounds  upon  which  it  rests  its  decisions  — 
after  it  has  multiplied  its  rules  to  any  possible  point  of 
circumstantiality  — there  will  always  continue  to  arise 
cases  without  end,  in  the  shifting  combinations  of 
human  action,  about  which  a  question  will  remain 
whether  they  do  or  do  not  fall  under  any  of  these 
rules.  And  the  best  way  for  seeing  this  truth  illus- 
trated on  a  broad  scale,  the  shortest  way  and  the  most 
decisive  is  —  to  point  our  attention  to  one  striking  fact, 
viz.  that  all  law,  as  it  exists  in  every  civilized  land,  is 
nothing  but  casuistry.  Simply  because  new  cases  are 
for  ever  arising  to  raise  new  doubts  whether  they  do  or 


CASUISTRY.  207 

do  not  fall  under  the  rule  of  law,  therefore  it  is  that 
law  is  so  inexhaustible.  The  law  terminates  a  dispute 
for  the  present  by  a  decision  of  a  court,  (which  con- 
stitutes our  '  common  Jaw,')  or  by  an  express  act  of  the 
legislature,  (which  constitutes  our  '  statute  law.'')  For 
a  month  or  two  matters  flow  on  smoothly.  But  then 
comes  a  new  case,  not  contemplated  or  not  verbally 
provided  for  in  the  previous  rule.  It  is  varied  by  some 
feature  of  difference.  The  feature,  it  is  suspected, 
makes  no  essential  difference  :  substantially  it  may  be 
the  old  case.  Ay  —  but  that  is  the  very  point  to  be 
decided.  And  so  arises  a  fresh  suit  at  law,  and  a  fresh 
decision.  For  example,  after  many  a  decision  and 
many  a  statute,  (all  arising  out  of  cases  supervening 
upon  cases,)  suppose  that  great  subdivision  of  juris- 
prudence called  the  Bankrupt  Laws  to  have  been  grad- 
ually matured.  It  has  been  settled,  suppose,  that  he 
who  exercises  a  trade,  and  no  other  whatsoever,  shall 
be  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  the  bankrupt  laws.  So  far 
is  fixed  :  and  people  vainly  imagine  that  at  length  a 
station  of  rest  is  reached,  and  that  in  this  direction  at 
least,  the  onward  march  of  law  is  barred.  Not  at  all. 
Suddenly  a  schoolmaster  becomes  insolvent,  and  at- 
tempts to  avail  himself  of  privileges  as  a  technical 
bankrupt.  But  then  arises  a  resistance  on  the  [)art  of 
those  who  are  interested  in  resisting  :  and  the  question 
is  raised  —  Whether  tlic  calling  of  a  schoolmaster  can 
be  legally  considered  a  tnide  ?  This  also  is  settled  :  it 
is  solemnly  determined  that  a  schoolmaster  is  a  trades- 
man. But  next  arises  a  case,  in  which,  from  peculiar 
variation  of  the  circumstances,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
the   teacher  can  technically  be  considered  a  school- 


208  CASUISTRY. 

master.  Suppose  that  case  settled  :  a  schoolmaster, 
sub-distinguished  as  an  X  Y  schoolmaster,  is  adjudged 
to  come  within  the  meaning  of  the  law.  But  scarcely 
is  this  sub-variety  disposed  of,  than  up  rises  some  de- 
complex case,  which  is  a  sub-variety  of  this  sub-varie- 
ety  :   and  so  on  for  ever. 

Hence,  therefore,  we  may  see  the  shortsightedness 
of  Paley  in  quoting  with  approbation,  and  as  if  it  im- 
plied a  reproach,  that  the  Mussulman  religious  code 
contains  '  not  less  than  seventy-five  thousand  tradi- 
tional precepts.'  True:  but  if  this  statement  shows 
an  excess  of  circumstantiality  in  the  moral  systems  of 
Mussulmans,  that  result  expresses  a  fact  which  Paley 
overlooks  —  viz.  that  their  moral  code  is  in  reality 
their  legal  code.  It  is  by  aggregation  of  cases,  by  the 
everlasting  depullulation  of  fresh  sprouts  and  shoots 
from  old  boughs,  that  this  enormous  accumulation  takes 
place  ;  and,  therefore,  the  apparent  anomaly  is  exact- 
ly paralleled  in  our  unmanageable  superstructure  of 
law,  and  in  the  French  supplements  to  their  code, 
which  have  already  far  overbuilt  the  code  itself.  If 
names  were  disregarded,  we  and  the  Mahometans  are 
in  the  very  same  circumstances. 

Casuistry,  therefore,  is  the  science  of  cases,  or  of 
those  special  varieties  which  are  forever  changing  the 
face  of  actions  as  contemplated  in  general  rules.  The 
tendency  of  such  variations  is,  in  all  states  of  complex 
civilization,  to  absolute  infinity ,2  It  is  our  present  pur- 
pose to  state  a  few  of  such  cases,  in  order  to  fix 
attention  upon  the  interest  and  the  importance  which 
surround  them.  No  modern  book  of  ethics  can  be 
worth  notice,  unless  in  so  far  as  it  selects  and  argues 


CASUISTRY.  209 

the  more  prominent  of  such  cases,  as  they  offer  them- 
selves in  the  economy  of  daily  life.  For  we  repeat  — 
that  the  name,  the  word  casuistry,  may  be  evaded,  but 
the  tiling  cannot ;  nor  is  it  evaded  in  our  daily  conver- 
sations. 

1.  The  Case  of  the  Jaffa  Massacre.  —  No  case  in 
the  whole  compass  of  casuistry  has  been  so  much 
argued  to  and  fro — none  has  been  argued  with  so 
little  profit;  for,  in  fact,  the  main  elements  of  the 
moral  decision  have  been  left  out  of  view.  Let  us 
state  the  circumstances:  —  On  the  11th  of  February, 
1799,  Napoleon,  then  and  for  seven  months  before  in 
military  possession  of  Egypt,  began  his  march  towards 
Syria.  His  object  was  to  break  the  force  of  any  Turk- 
ish invasion,  by  taking  it  in  fractions.  It  had  become 
notorious  to  every  person  in  Egypt,  that  the  Porte 
rejected  the  French  pretence  of  having  come  for  the 
purpose  of  quelling  Mameluke  rebellion  —  the  absurd- 
ity of  which,  apart  from  its  ludicrous  Quixotism,  was 
evident  in  the  most  practical  way,  viz.  by  the  fact,  that 
the  whole  revenues  of  Egypt  were  more  than  swal- 
lowed up  by  the  pay  and  maintenance  of  the  French 
army.  What  could  the  Mamelukes  have  done  worse  ? 
Hence  it  had  become  certain  that  the  Turks  would 
send  an  expedition  to  Egypt ;  and  Napoleon  viewing 
the  garrisons  in  Syria  as  the  advanced  guard  of  such 
an  expedition,  saw  the  best  chance  for  general  victory 
in  meeting  these  troops  beforehand,  and  destroying 
them  in  detail.  About  nineteen  days  brought  him 
within  view  of  the  Syrian  fields.  On  the  last  day  of 
February  he  slept  at  the  Arimathca  of  the  Gospel.  In 
a  day  or  two  after  his  army  was  before  Jalia,  (the 
U 


210  CASUISTRY. 

Joppa  of  the  Crusaders,)  — a  weak  place,  but  of  some 
military  interest,^  from  the  accident  of  being  the  very 
first  fortified  town  to  those  entering  Palestine  from  the 
side  of  Egypt.  On  the  4th  of  March  this  place  was 
invested  ;  on  the  6th,  barely  forty-eight  hours  after,  it 
was  taken  by  storm.  This  fact  is  in  itself  important ; 
because  it  puts  an  end  to  the  pretence  so  often  brought 
forward,  that  the  French  army  had  been  irritated  by  a 
long  resistance.  Yet,  supposing  the  fact  to  have  been 
so,  how  often  in  the  history  of  war  must  every  reader 
have  met  with  cases  where  honorable  terms  were 
granted  to  an  enemy  merely  on  account  of  his  obsti- 
nate resistance  ?  But  then  here,  it  is  said,  the  resist- 
ance was  wilfully  pushed  to  the  arbitration  of  a  storm. 
Even  that  might  be  otherwise  staled  ;  but,  suppose  it 
true,  a  storm  in  military  law  confers  some  rights  upon 
the  assailants  which  else  they  would  not  have  had  — 
rights,  however,  which  cease  with  the  day  of  storming. 
Nobody  denies  that  the  French  army  might  have  massa- 
cred all  whom  they  met  in  arms  at  the  time  and  during 
the  agony  of  storming.  But  the  question  is,  Whether  a 
I'csistance  of  forty-eight  hours  could  create  the  right, 
or  in  the  least  degree  palliate  the  atrocity,  of  putting 
prisoners  to  death  in  cold  blood  ?  Four  days  after  the 
storming,  when  all  things  had  settled  back  into  the 
quiet  routine  of  ordinary  life,  men  going  about  their 
aflfairs  as  usual,  confidence  restored,  and,  above  all 
things,  after  the  faith  of  a  Christian  army  had  been 
pledged  to  these  prisoners  that  not  a  hair  of  their 
heads  should  be  touched,  the  imagination  is  appalled 
by  this  wholesale  butchery  —  even  the  apologists  of 
Napoleon   are    shocked    by  'the  amount    of   murder, 


CASUISTRY.  211 

though  justifying  its  principle.  They  admit  that  there 
were  two  divisions  of  the  prisoners  —  one  of  fifteen 
hundred,  the  other  of  two  thousand  five  hundred. 
Their  combined  amount  is  equal  to  a  little  army ;  in 
fact,  just  about  that  army  with  which  we  fought  and 
won  the  battle  of  Maida  in  Calabria.  They  composed 
a  force  equal  to  about  six  English  regiments  of  infan- 
try on  the  common  establishment.  Every  man  of 
these  four  thousand  soldiers,  chiefly  brave  Albanians 
—  every  man  of  this  little  army  was  basely,  brutally, 
in  the  very  spirit  of  abject  poltroonery,  murdered  — 
murdered  as  foully  as  the  infants  of  Bethlehem  ;  re- 
sistance being  quite  hopeless,  not  only  because  they 
had  surrendered  their  arms,  but  also  because,  in  reli- 
ance on  Christian  honor,  they  had  quietly  submitted  to 
have  their  hands  confined  with  ropes  behind  their 
backs.  If  this  blood  did  not  lie  heavy  on  Napoleon's 
heart  in  his  dying  hours,  it  must  have  been  because  a 
conscience  originally  callous  had  been  seared  by  the 
very  number  of  his  atrocities. 

Now,  having  stated  the  case,  let  us  review  the  casu- 
istical apologies  put  forward.  What  was  to  be  done  with 
these  prisoners  ?  There  lay  the  difficulty.  Could  they 
be  retained  according  to  the  common  usage  with  re- 
gard to  prisoners?  No«;  for  there  was  a  scarciiy  of 
provisions,  barely  sufficient  for  the  French  army  itself. 
Could  they  be  transported  to  Egypt  by  sea  ?  No  ;  for 
two  English  line-of-battle  ships,  the  Theseus  and  the 
Tiger,  were  cruising  in  the  offing,  and  watching  the 
interjacent  seas  of  Egypt  and  Syria.  Could  they  be 
transported  to  Egypt  by  land  ?  No  ;  for  it  was  not  pos- 
sible  to  spare  a  sufficient    escort;    besides,  this  plan 


212  CASUISTRY. 

would  have  included  the  separate  difficulty  as  to  food. 
Finally,  then,  as  the  sole  resource  left,  could  they  be 
turned  adrift  ?  No ;  for  this  was  but  another  mode  of 
saying,  'Lotus  fight  the  matter  over  again;  reinstate 
yourselves  as  our  enemies  ;  let  us  leave  Jaffa  re  iiifectd, 
and  let  all  begin  again  de  novo ' — since,  assuredly,  say 
the  French  apologists,  in  a  fortnight  from  that  date, 
the  prisoners  would  have  been  found  swelling  the 
ranks  of  those  Turkish  forces  whom  Napoleon  had 
reason  to  expect  in  front. 

Before  we  take  one  step  in  replying  to  these  argu- 
ments, let  us  cite  two  parallel  cases  from  history:  they 
are  interesting  for  themselves,  and  they  show  how 
other  armies,  not  Christian,  have  treated  the  self-same 
difficulty  in  practice.  The  first  shall  be  a  leaf  taken 
from  the  great  book  of  Pagan  experience  ;  the  second 
from  Mahometan  :  and  both  were  cases  in  which  the 
parties  called  on  to  cut  the  knot  had  been  irritated 
to  madness  by  the  parties  lying  at  their  disposal. 

1.  The  Pagan  Decision. — In  that  Jewish  war  of 
more  than  three  years'  duration,  which  terminated  in 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  two  cities  on  the  lake  of 
Gennesaret  were  besieged  by  Vespasian.  One  of 
these  was  Tiberias :  the  other  Tarichse.  Both  had 
been  defended  with  desperation  ;  and  from  their  pecu- 
liar situation  upon  water,  and  amongst  profound  preci- 
pices, the  Roman  battering  apparatus  had  not  been 
found  applicable  to  their  walls.  Consequently  the  re- 
sistance and  the  loss  to  the  Romans  had  been  unexam- 
pled. At  the  latter  siege  Vespasian  was  present  in 
person.  Six  thousand  five  hundred  had  perished  of  the 
enemy.     A  number  of  prisoners  remained,  amounting 


CASUISTEY.  213 

to  about  forty  thousand.  What  was  to  be  done  with 
them  ?  A  great  council  was  held,  at  which  the  com- 
mander-in-chief presided,  assisted  (as  Napoleon)  by 
his  whole  staff.  Many  of  the  officers  were  strongly 
for  having  the  whole  put  to  death  :  they  used  the  very 
arguments  of  the  French  — '  that,  being  people  now 
destitute  of  habitations,  they  would  infallibly  urge  any 
cities  which  received  them  into  a  war : '  fighting,  in 
fact,  henceforward  upon  a  double  impulse  —  viz.  the 
original  one  of  insurrection,  and  a  new  one  of  revenge. 
Vespasian  was  sensible  of  all  this;  and  he  himself 
remarked,  that,  if  they  had  any  indulgence  of  flight 
conceded,  they  would  assuredly  use  it  against  the 
authors  of  that  indulgence.  But  still,  as  an  answer  to 
all  objections,  he  insisted  on  the  solitary  fact,  that  he 
had  pledged  the  Roman  faith  for  the  security  of  their 
lives  ;  '  and  to  offer  violence,  after  he  had  given  them 
his  right  hand,  was  what  he  could  not  bear  to  think  of.' 
Such  are  the  simple  words  of  Josephus.  In  the  end, 
overpowered  by  his  council,  Vespasian  made  a  sort  of 
compromise.  Twelve  hundred,  as  persons  who  could 
not  have  faced  the  hardships  of  captivity  and  travel,  he 
gave  up  to  the  sword.  Six  thousand  select  young  men 
were  transported  as  laborers  into  Greece,  with  a  view 
to  Nero's  scheme,  then  in  agitation,  for  cutting  through 
the  isthmus  of  Corinth  ;  the  main  body,  amounting  to 
thirty  thousand,  were  sold  for  slaves  ;  and  all  the  rest, 
who  happened  to  be  subjects  of  Agrippa,  as  a  mark  of 
courtesy  to  that  prince,  were  placed  at  his  disposal. 
Now,  in  this  case,  it  will  be  alleged  that  perhaps  the 
main  feature  of  Napoleon's  case  was  not  realized,  viz. 
the  want  of  provisions.     Every  Roman  soldier  carried 


214  CASUISTRY. 

on  his  shoulders  a  load  of  seventeen  days'  provisions, 
expressly  in  preparation  for  such  dilemmas  ;  and  Pal- 
estine was  then  rank  with  population  gathered  into 
towns.  This  objection  will  be  noticed  immediately  : 
but,  meantime,  let  it  be  remembered  that  the  prisoners 
personally  appeared  before  their  conquerors  in  far 
worse  circumstances  than  the  garrison  of  Jaffa,  except 
as  to  the  one  circumstance  (in  which  both  parties  stood 
on  equal  ground)  of  having  had  their  lives  guaranteed. 
For  the  prisoners  of  Gennesaret  were  chiefly  aliens 
and  fugitives  from  justice,  who  had  no  national  or  local 
interest  in  the  cities  which  they  had  tempted  or  forced 
into  insurrection  ;  they  were  clothed  with  no  military 
character  whatever ;  in  short,  they  were  pure  vagrant 
incendiaries.  And  the  populous  condition  of  Palestine 
availed  little  towards  the  execution  of  Vespasian's  sen- 
tence :  nobody  in  that  land  would  have  bought  such 
prisoners;  nor,  if  they  would,  were  there  any  means 
available,  in  the  agitated  state  of  the  Jewish  people,  for 
maintaining  their  purchase.  It  would,  therefore,  be 
necessary  to  escort  them  to  Ceesarea,  as  the  nearest 
Roman  port  for  shipping  them  :  thence  perhaps  to  Al- 
exandria, in  order  to  benefit  by  the  corn  vessels :  and 
from  Alexandria  the  voyage  to  remoter  places  would 
be  pursued  at  great  cost  and  labor  —  all  so  many  ob- 
jections exactly  corresponding  to  those  of  Napoleon, 
and  yet  all  overruled  by  the  single  consideration  of  a 
Roman  (viz.  a  Pagan)  right  hand  pledged  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  a  promise.  As  to  the  twelve  hundred  old  and 
helpless  people  nlassacred  in  cold  blood,  as  regarded 
themselves  it  was  a  merciful  doom,  and  one  which 
many  of  the  Jerusalem   captives   afterwards  eagerly 


CASUISTRY.  215 

courted.  But  still  it  was  a  shocking  case.  It  was  felt 
to  be  so  by  many  Romans  themselves  :  Vespasian  was 
overruled  in  that  instance :  and  the  horror  which  settled 
upon  the  mind  of  Titus,  his  eldest  son,  from  that  very 
case  amongst  others,  made  him  tender  of  human  life, 
and  anxiously  merciful,  through  the  great  tragedies 
which  were  now  beginning  to  unrol  themselves. 

2.  The  Mahometan  Decision. — The  Emperor 
Charles  V.,  at  different  periods,  twice  invaded  the  pirat- 
ical states  in  the  north  of  Africa.  The  last  of  these 
invasions,  directed  against  Algiers,  failed  miserably, 
covering  the  Emperor  with  shame,  and  strewing  both 
land  and  sea  with  the  wrecks  of  his  great  armament. 
But  six  years  before,  he  had  conducted  a  most  splendid 
and  successful  expedition  against  Tunis,  then  occupied 
by  Heyradin  Barbarossa,  a  valiant  corsair  and  a  pros- 
perous usurper.  Barbarossa  had  an  irregular  force  of 
fifty  thousand  men  ;  the  Emperor  had  a  veteran  army, 
but  not  acclimatized,  and  not  much  above  one  half  as 
numerous.  Things  tended,  therefore,  strongly  to  an 
equilibrium.  Such  were  the  circumstances  —  such 
was  the  position  on  each  side  :  Barbarossa,  with  his 
usual  adventurous  courage,  was  drawing  out  of  Tunis 
in  order  to  fight  the  invader  :  precisely  at  that  moment 
occurred  the  question  of  what  should  be  done  with  the 
Christian  slaves.  A  stronger  case  cannot  be  imagined  : 
they  were  ten  thousand  fighting  men  ;  and  the  more 
horrible  it  seemed  to  murder  so  many  defenceless  peo- 
ple, the  more  dreadfully  did  the  danger  strike  upon  the 
imagination.  It  was  their  number  which  appalled  the 
conscience  of  those  who  speculated  on  their  murder ; 
but  precisely  that  it  was,  when  pressed  upon  the  recol- 


216  CASUISTRY. 

lection,  which  appalled  the  prudence  of  their  Moorish 
masters.  Barbarossa  himself,  fiimiliar  with  bloody- 
actions,  never  hesitated  about  the  proper  course  :  '  mas- 
sacre without  mercy '  was  his  proposal.  But  his  offi- 
cers thought  otherwise  :  they  were  brave  men  ;  '  and,' 
says  Eobertson,  '  they  all  approved  warmly  of  his  in- 
tention to  fight.  But,  inured  as  they  were  to  scenes  of 
bloodshed,  the  barbarity  of  his  proposal  filled  them 
with  horror  ;  and  Barbarossa,  from  the  dread  of  irri- 
tating them,  consented  to  spare  the  lives  of  the  slaves.' 
Now,  in  this  case,  the  penalty  attached  to  mercy,  in 
case  it  should  turn  out  unhappily  for  those  who  so 
nobly  determined  to  stand  the  risk,  cannot  be  more 
tragically  expressed,  than  by  saying  that  it  did  turn 
out  unhappily.  We  need  not  doubt  that  the  merciful 
officers  were  otherwise  rewarded  ;  but  for  this  world 
and  the  successes  of  this  world  the  ruin  was  total. 
Barbarossa  was  defeated  in  the  battle  which  ensued  ; 
flying  pell-mell  to  Tunis  with  the  wrecks  of  his  army, 
he  found  these  very  ten  thousand  Christians  in  posses- 
sion of  the  fort  and  town :  they  turned  his  own  artillery 
upon  himself:  and  his  overthrow  was  sealed  by  that 
one  act  of  mercy —  so  unwelcome  from  the  very  first 
to  his  own  Napoleonish  temper. 

Thus  we  see  how  this  very  case  of  Jaffa,  had  been 
settled  by  Pagan  and  Mahometan  casuists,  where  cour- 
age and  generosity  happened  to  be  habitually  preva- 
lent. Now,  turning  back  to  the  pseudo-Christian  army, 
let  us  very  briefly  review  the  arguments  {or  them. 
First,  there  were  no  provisions.  But  how  happened 
that  r  or  liow  is  it  proved  ?  Feeding  the  prisoners 
from  the  6th  to  the  10th  inclusively  of  March,  proves 


CASUISTRY. 


217 


that  there  was  no  instant  want.  And  how  was  it,  then, 
that  Napoleon  had  run  his  calculations  so  narrowly  ! 
The  prisoners  were  just  83  per  cent,  on  the  total 
French  army,  as  originally  detached  from  Cairo.  Some 
had  already  perished  of  that  army  :  and  in  a  few 
weeks  more,  one  half  of  that  army  had  perished,  or 
six  thousand  men,  whose  rations  were  hourly  becoming 
disposable  for  the  prisoners.  Secondly,  a  most  impor- 
tant point,  resources  must  have  been  found  in  Jaffa. 
But  thirdly,  if  not,  if  Jaffa  were  so  ill-provisioned,  how 
had  it  ever  dreamed  of  standinij  a  sie";e .-'  And  know- 
ing  its  condition,  as  Napoleon  must  have  done  from 
deserters  and  otherwise,  how  came  he  to  adopt  so 
needless  a  measure  as  that  of  storming  the  place  .'' 
Three  days  must  have  compelled  it  to  surrender  upon 
any  terms,  if  it  could  be  really  true  that,  after  losing 
vast  numbers  of  its  population  in  the  assault  (for  it  was 
the  bloodshed  of  the  assault  which  originally  suggested 
the  interference  of  the  aides-de-camp,)  Jaffa  was  not 
able  to  allow  half-rations  even  to  a  part  of  its  garrison 
for  a  few  weeks.  What  was  ft  meant  that  the  whole 
should  have  done,  had  Napoleon  simply  blockaded  it } 
Through  all  the.se  contradictions  we  see  the  truth  loom- 
ing as  from  behind  a  mist  :  it  was  not  because  provis- 
ions failed  that  Napoleon  butchered  four  thousand 
young  men  in  cold  blood  ;  it  was  because  he  wished  to 
signalize  his  entrance  into  Palestine  by  a  sanguinary 
act,  such  as  might  strike  terror  far  and  wide,  resound 
through  Syria  as  well  as  Egypt,  and  paralyze  the 
nerves  of  his  enemies.  Fourthly,  it  is  urged  that,  if 
he  had  turned  the  prisoners  loose,  they  would  have 
faced  him  again  in  his  next  battle.     How  so.?     Prison- 


218 


CASUISTRY. 


ers  without  arms  ?  But  then,  perhaps,  they  could  have 
retreated  upon  Acre,  \vh$re  it  is  known  that  Djezzar, 
the  Turkish  pacha,  had  a  great  magazine  of  arms. 
That  might  have  been  dangerous,  if  any  such  retreat 
had  been  open.  But  surely  the  French  army,  itself 
under  orders  for  Acre,  could  at  least  have  intercepted 
the  Acre  route  from  the  prisoners.  No  other  remain- 
ed but  that  through  the  defiles  of  Naplous.  In  this 
direction,  however,  there  was  no  want  of  men.  Be- 
yond the  mountains  cavalry  only  were  in  use  :  and  the 
prisoners  had  no  horses,  nor  habits  of  acting  as  cav- 
alry. In  the  defiles  it  was  riflemen  who  were  wanted, 
and  tlie  prisoners  had  no  rifles  ;  besides  that,  the  line 
of  the  French  operations  never  came  near  to  that 
route.  Then,  again,  if  provisions  were  so  scarce,  how 
were  the  unarmed  prisoners  to  obtain  them  on  the 
simple  allegation  that  they  had  fought  unsuccessfully 
against  the  French  ! 

But,  finally,  one  conclusive  argument  there  is  against 
this  damnable  atroc  ty  of  Napoleon's,  which,  in  all  fu- 
ture Lives  of  Napoleon,  one  may  expect  to  see  noticed, 
viz.,  that  if  the  circumstances  of  Palestine  were  such  as 
to  forbid  the  ordinary  usages  of  war,  if  (which  we  are 
far  from  believing)  want  of  provisions  made  it  indis- 
pensable to  murder  prisoners  in  cold  blood  —  in  that 
case  a  Syrian  war  became  impossible  to  a  man  of 
honor;  and  the  guilt  commences  from  a  higher  point 
than  Jalfa.  Already  at  Cairo,  and  in  the  elder  stages 
of  the  expedition,  planned  in  face  of  such  afllicting 
necessities,  we  read  the  counsels  of  a  murderer  ;  of 
one  rightly  carrying  such  a  style  of  warfare  towards 
the  ancient  country  of  the  assassins  ;  of  one  not   an 


CASUISTRY.  219 

apostate  merely  from  Christian  humanity,  but  from  the 
lowest  standard  of  soldierly  honor.  He  and  his  friends 
abuse  Sir  Hudson  Lowe  as  a  jailer.  But  far  better  to 
be  a  jailer,  and  faithful  to  one's  trust,  than  to  be  the 
cut-throat  of  unarmed  men. 

One  consideration  remains,  which  we  reserve  to  the 
end ;  because  it  has  been  universally  overlooked,  and 
because  it  is  conclusive  against  Napoleon,  even  on  his 
own  hypothesis  of  an  absolute  necessity.  '  In  Vespa- 
sian's case  it  does  not  appear  that  he  had  gained  any- 
thing for  himself,  or  for  his  army,  by  his  promise  of 
safety  to  the  enemy  :  he  had  simply  gratified  his  own 
feelings  by  holding  out  prospects  of  final  escape.  But 
Napoleon  had  absolutely  seduced  the  four  thousand  men 
from  a  situation  of  power,  from  vantage-ground,  by  his 
treacherous  promise.  And  when  the  French  apologists 
plead  — '  If  we  had  dismissed  the  prisoners  we  should 
soon  have  had  to  fight  the  battle  over  again  '  —  they 
totally  forget  the  state  of  the  facts  :  rthey  had  not  fought 
the  battle  at  all :  they  had  evaded  the  battle  as  to  these 
prisoners  :  as  many  enemies  as  could  have  faced  them 
de  novo,  so  many  had  they  bought  off  from  fighting. 
Forty  centuries  of  armed  men,  brave  and  despairing, 
and  firing  from  windows,  must  have  made  prodigious 
havoc  :  and  this  havoc  the  French  evaded  by  a  trick, 
by  a  perfidy,  perhaps  unexampled  in  the  annals  of 
military  men. 

II.  Piracy.  —  It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  revolutions 
of  moral  feeling.  In  the  early  stages  of  history  we 
find  piracy  in  high  esteem.  Thucydides  tells  us  that 
Xi^oTiia  or  robbery,  when  conducted  at  sea,  {i.  e.  robbery 
on  non-Grecian  people,)  was  held  in  the  greatest  honor 


220  CASUISTRY. 

by  his  countrymen  in  elder  ages.  And  this,  in  fact,  is 
the  true  station,  this  point  of  feeling  for  primitive  man, 
from  which  we  ought  to  view  the  robberies  and  larce- 
nies of  savages.  Captain  Cook,  though  a  good  and 
often  a  wise  man,  erred  in  this  point.  He  took  a  plain 
Old  Bailey  view  of  the  case  ;  and  very  sincerely  be- 
lieved, (as  all  sea-captains  ever  have  done,)  that  a 
savage  must  be  a  bad  man,  who  would  purloin  any- 
thing that  was  not  his.  Yet  it  is  evident  that  the  poor 
child  of  uncultured  nature,  who  saw  strangers  descend- 
ing, as  it  were  from  the  moon,  upon  his  aboriginal 
forests  and  lawns,  must  have  viewed  them  under  the 
same  angle  as  the  Greeks  of  old.  They  were  no  part 
of  any  system  to  which  he  belonged  ;  and  why  should 
he  not  plunder  them  ?  By  force  if  he  could  :  but, 
where  that  was  out  of  the  question,  why  should  he  not 
take  the  same  credit  for  an  undetected  theft  that  the 
Spartan  gloried  in  taking  ?  To  be  detected  was  both 
shame  and  loss ;  but  he  was  certainly  entitled  to  any 
glory  which  might  seem  to  settle  upon  success,  not  at 
all  less  than  the  more  pretending  citizen  of  Sparta. 
Besides  all  which,  amongst  us  civilized  men  the  rule 
obtains  universally  —  that  the  state  and  duties  of  peace 
are  to  be  presumed  until  war  is  proclaimed.  Whereas, 
amongst  rude  nations,  war  is  understood  to  be  the  rule 
—  war,  open  or  covert,  until  suspended  by  express  con- 
tract. Bellum  inter  omnes  is  the  natural  state  of  things 
for  all,  except  those  who  view  themselves  as  brothers 
by  natural  affinity,  by  local  neighborhood,  by  common 
descent,  or  who  make  themselves  brothers  by  artificial 
contracts.  Captain  Cook,  who  overlooked  all  this, 
should  have  begun  by  arranging  a  solemn  treaty  with 


CASUISTRY.  221 

the  saVages  amongst  whom  he  meant  to  reside  for  any 
length  of  time.  This  would  have  prevented  many  an 
angry  broil  then,  and  since  then  :  it  would  also  have 
prevented  his  own  tragical  fate.  Meantime  the  savage 
is  calumniated  and  misrepresented,  for  want  of  being 
understood. 

There  is,  however,  amongst  civilized  nations  a  mode 
of  piracy  still  tolerated,  or  which  icas  tolerated  in  the 
last  war,  but  is  now  ripe  for  extinction.  It  is  th.at  war 
of  private  men  upon  private  men,  which  goes  on  under 
the  name  of  privateering.  Great  changes  have  taken 
place  in  our  modes  of  thinking  within  the  last  twenty- 
five  years  ;  and  the  greatest  change  of  all  lies  in  the 
thoughtful  spirit  which  we  now  bring  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  all  public  questions.  We  have  no  doubt  at  all 
that,  when  next  a  war  arises  at  sea,  the  whole  system 
of  privateering  will  be  condemned  by  the  public  voice. 
And  the  next  step  after  that  will  be,  to  explode  all  war 
whatsoever,  public  or  private,  upon  commerce.  War 
will  be  conducted  by  belligerents  and  upon  belligerents 
exclusivel5^  To  imagine  the  extinction  of  war  itself, 
in  the  present  stage  of  human  advance,  is,  we  fear, 
idle.  Higher  modes  of  civilization  —  an  earth  more 
universally  colonized  —  the  homo  sapiens  of  Linnrous 
more  humanized,  and  other  improvements  must  pave 
the  way  for  that :  but  amongst  the  earliest  of  those 
improvements,  will  be  the  abolition  of  war  carried  into 
quarters  where  the  spirit  of  war  never  ought  to  pene- 
trate. Privateering  will  be  abolished.  War,  on  a 
national  scale,  is  often  ennobling,  and  one  great  instru- 
ment of  pioneering  for  civilization  ;  but  war  of  private 
citizen  upon  his  fellow,  in  another  land,  is  always 
demoralizing. 


222  CASUISTRY. 

III.  Usury.  —  This  ancient  subject  of  casuistry  we 
place  next  to  ]}lracy,  for  a  significant  reason  :  tlie  two 
practices  have  both  changed  their  public  reputation  as 
civilization  has  advanced,  but  inversely  —  they  have 
interchanged  characters.  Piracy,  beginning  in  honor, 
has  ended  in  infamy  :  and  at  this  moment  it  happens 
to  be  the  sole  ofience  against  society  in  which  all  the 
accomplices,  without  pity  or  intercession,  let  them  be 
ever  so  numerous,  are  punished  capitally.  Elsewhere, 
we  decimate,  or  even  centesimate  :  here,  we  are  all 
children  of  Rhadamanthus.  Usury,  on  the  other  hand, 
beginning  in  utter  infamy,  has  travelled  upwards  into 
considerable  esteem  ;  and  Mr.  '  10 per  shent''  stands  a 
very  fair  chance  of  being  pricked  for  sheriff  next  year ; 
and,  in  one  generation  more,  of  passing  for  a  great 
patriot.  Charles  Lamb  complained  that,  by  gradual 
changes,  not  on  his  part,  but  in  the  spirit  of  refinement, 
he  found  himself  growing  insensibly  into  '  an  indecent 
character.'  The  same  changes  which  carry  some 
downwards,  carry  others  up  ;  and  Shylock  himself 
will  soon  be  viewed  as  an,  eminent  martyr  or  confessor 
for  the  truth  as  it  is  in  the  Alley.  Seriously,  however, 
there  is  nothing  more  remarkable  in  the  history  of 
casuistical  ethics,  than  the  utter  revolution  in  human 
estimates  of  usury.  In  this  one  point  the  Hebrew  legis- 
lator agreed  with  the  Roman  —  Deuteronomy  with  the 
Twelve  Tables.  Cicero  mentions  that  the  elder  Cato 
being  questioned  on  various  actions,  and  how  he  ranked 
them  in  his  esteem,  was  at  length  asked.  Quid  fcene- 
rari  ?  —  how  did  he  rank  usury  ?  His  indignant 
answer  was,  by  a  retorted  question  —  Quid  ho7ninem 
occidere  7  — what  do  I  think  of  murder  ?     In  this  par- 


CASUISTRY.  223 

ticular  case,  as  in  some  others,  we  must  allow  that  our 
worthy  ancestors  and  forerunners  upon  this  terraqueous 
planet  were  enormous  blockheads.  And  their  '  exqui- 
site reason '  for  this  opinion  on  usury,  was  quite  worthy 
of  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  :  — '  money,'  they  argued, 
'  could  not  breed  money  :  one  guinea  was  neither  father 
nor  mother  to  another  guinea  :  and  where  could  be  the 
justice  of  making  a  man  pay  for  the  use  of  a  thing 
which  that  thing  could  never  produce  ? '  But,  venera- 
ble blockheads,  that  argument  applies  to  the  case  of 
him  who  locks  up  his  borrowed  guinea.  Suppose  him 
7iof  to  lock  it  up,  but  to  buy  a  hen,  and  the  hen  to  lay 
a  dozen  eggs  ;  one  of  those  eggs  will  be  so  much  per 
cent. ;  and  the  thing  borrowed  has  then  produced  its 
own  foemis.  A  still  greater  inconsistency  was  this : 
Our  ancestors  would  have  rejoined  —  that  many  people 
did  not  borrow  in  order  to  produce,  i.  e.  to  use  the 
money  as  capital,  but  in  order  to  spend,  i.  e.  to  use  it 
as  income.  In  that  case,  at  least,  the  borrowers  must 
derive  the  fcenus  from  some  other  fund  than  the  thing 
borrowed  :  for,  by  the  supposition,  the  thing  borrowed 
lias  been  spent.  True ;  but  on  the  same  principle 
these  ancestors  ought  to  have  forbidden  every  man  to 
sell  any  article  whatsoever  to  him  who  paid  for  it  out 
of  other  funds  than  those  produced  by  the  article  sold. 
Mere  logical  consistency  required  this  :  it  happens,  in- 
deed, to  be  impossible  :  but  that  only  argues  their  entire 
non-comprehension  of  their  own  doctrines. 

The  whole  history  of  usury  teems  with  instruction : 
1st,  comes  the  monstrous  absurdity  in  which  the  pro- 
scription of  usury  anchored  ;  2d,  the  absolute  compul- 
sion and  pressure  of  realities  in  forcing  men  into  a 


224  CASUISTRY. 

timid  abandonment  of  their  own  doctrines;  3d,  the 
unconquerable  power  of  sympathy,  which  humbled  all 
minds  to  one  level,  and  forced  the  strongest  no  less 
than  the  feeblest  intellects  into  the  same  infatuation  of 
stupidity.  The  casuistry  of  ancient  moralists  on  this 
question,  especially  of  the  scholastic  moralists,  such  as 
Suarrez,  «Stc.  —  the  oscillations  by  which  they  ultimate- 
ly relaxed  and  tied  up  the  law,  just  as  their  erring 
conscience,  or  the  necessities  of  social  life  prevailed, 
would  compose  one  of  the  interesting  chapters  in  this 
science.  But  the  Jewish  relaxation  is  the  most  amus- 
ing :  it  coincides  altogether  with  the  theory  of  savages 
as  to  property,  which  we  have  'already  noticed  under 
the  head  of  Piracy.  All  men  on  earth,  except  Jews, 
were  held  to  be  fair  subjects  for  usury  ;  not  as  though 
usury  were  a  just  or  humane  thing:  no  —  it  was  a  bel- 
ligerent act:  but  then  all  foreigners  in  the  Jewish  eye 
were  enemies  for  the  same  reason  that  the  elder 
Romans  had  a  common  term  for  an  enemy  and  a 
stranger.  And  it  is  probable  that  many-  Jews  at  this 
day,  in  exercising  usury,  conceive  themselves  to  be 
seriously  making  war,  in  a  privateering  fashion,  upon 
Christendom,  and  practising  reprisals  on  the  Gentiles 
for  ruined  Jerusalem. 

IV.  Bishop  Gibso7i''s  Chronicon  Preciosum.  —  Many 
people  are  aware  that  this  book  is  a  record  of  prices, 
as  far  as  they  were  recoverable,  pursued  through  six 
centuries  of  English  History.  But  they  are  not  aware 
that  this  whole  inquiry  is  simply  the  machinery  for 
determining  a  casuistical  question.  The  question  was 
this: — An  English  College,  but  we  cannot  say  in 
which  of  our  universities,  had  been  founded  in  the 


CASUISTRY.  22b 

reign  of  Henry  VI.,  and  between  1440  and  1460 — 
probably  it  might  be  King's  College,  Cambridge.  Now, 
the  statutes  of  this  college  make  it  imperative  upon 
every  candidate  for  a  fellowship  to  swear  that  he  does 
not  possess  an  estate  in  land  of  inheritance,  nor  a  per- 
petual pension  amounting  to  five  pounds  per  annum. 
It  is  certain,  however,  that  the  founder  did  not  mean 
superstitiously  so  much  gold  or  silver  as  made  nominal- 
ly the  sum  of  five  pounds,  but  so  much  as  virtually 
represented  the  five  pounds  of  Henry  VI. 's  time  —  so 
much  as  would  buy  the  same  quantity  of  ordinary  com- 
fort. Upon  this,  therefore,  arose  two  questions  for  the 
casuist:  (1.)  What  sum  did  substantially  represent,  in 
1706,  (the  year  of  publishing  the  Chron.  rreciosum,) 
that  nominal  <£5  of  1440?  (2.)  Supposing  this  ascer- 
tained, might  a  man  with  safe  conscience  retain  his 
fellowship  by  swearing  that  he  had  not  £5  a-year, 
when  perhaps  he  had  .£20,  provided  that  c£20  were 
proved  to  be  less  in  efiicacy  than  the  ^5  of  the  elder 
period  ?  Verbally  this  was  perjury :  was  it  such  in 
reality  and  to  the  conscience  ? 

The  Chronicle  is  not,  as  by  its  title  the  reader  might 
suppose,  a  large  folio :  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  small 
octavo  of  less  than  200  pages.  But  it  is  exceedingly 
interesting,  very  ably  reasoned,  and  as  circumstantial 
in  its  illustrations  as  the  good  bishop's  opportunities 
allowed  him  to  make  it.  In  one  thing  he  was  more 
liberal  than  Sir  William  Petty,  Dr.  Davenant,  &c.,  or 
any  elder  economists  of  the  preceding  century ;  he 
would  have  statistics  treated  as  a  classical  or  scholar- 
like study  ;  and  he  shows  a  most  laudable  curiosity  in 
all  the  questions  arising  out  of  his  main  one.  His 
15 


226  CASUISTRY. 

answer  to  thai  is  as  follows :  1st,  tliat  £^  in  Henry 
VI.'s  time  contained  forty  ounces  of  silver,  whereas  in 
Queen  Anne's  it  contained  only  nineteen  ounces  and 
one-third  ;  so  that,  in  reality,  the  £b  of  1440,  was, 
even  as  to  weight  of  silver,  rather  more  than  .£10  of 
1706.  2d,  as  to  the  efficacy  of  ^10  in  Henry  VI.'s 
reign :  upon  reviewing  the  main  items  of  common 
household  (and  therefore  of  common  academic)  ex- 
penditure, and  pursuing  this  review  through  bad  years 
and  good  years,  the  bishop  decides  that  it  is  about 
equal  to  .£25  or  £30  of  Queen  Anne's  reign.  Sir 
George  Shuckburgh  has  since  treated  this  casuistical 
problem  more  elaborately :  but  Bishop  Gibson  it  was, 
who,  in  his  Chronicon  Preciosum,  first  broke  the  ice. 

After  this,  he  adds  an  ingenious  question  upon  the 
apparently  parallel  case  of  a  freeholder  swearing  him- 
self worth  40s.  per  annum  as  a  qualification  for  an 
electoral  vote  :  ought  not  he  to  hold  himself  perjured  in 
voting  upon  an  estate  often  so  much  below  the  original 
4O5.  contemplated  by  Parliament,  for  the  very  same 
reason  that  a  collegian  is  7wt  perjured  in  holding  a 
fellowship,  whilst,  in  fact,  he  may  have  four  or  five 
times  the  nominal  sum  privileged  by  the  founder  .'* 
The  bishop  says  no  ;  and  he  distinguishes  the  case 
thus:  the  college  ^5  must  always  mean  a  virtual  £5 
—  a  £5  in  efficacy,  and  not  merely  in  name.  But  the 
freeholder's  40s.  is  not  so  restricted  ;  and  for  the  fol- 
lowing reason  —  that  this  sum  is  constantly  coming 
under  the  review  of  Parliament.  It  is  clear,  therefore, 
from  the  'fact  of  not  having  altered  it,  that  Parliament 
is  satisfied  with  a  merely  nominal  40s.,  and  sees  no 
reason  to  alter  it.     True,  it  was  a  rule  enacted  by  the 


CASUISTRY.  227 

Parliament  of  1430 ;  at  which  time  405.  was  even  in 
weight  of  silver  equal  to  80s.  of  1706 ;  and  in  virtue 
or  power  of  purchasing  equal  to  ,£12  at  the  least. 
The  qualification  of  a  freeholder  is,  therefore,  much 
lower  in  Queen  Anne's  days  than  in  those  of  Henry 
VI.  But  what  of  that  ?  Parliament,  it  must  be  pre- 
sumed, sees  good,  reason  why  it  should  be  lower.  And 
at  all  events,  till  the  law  operates  amiss,  there  can  be 
no  reason  to  alter  it. 

A  case  of  the  same  kind  with  those  argued  by  Bishop 
Gibson  arose  often  in  trials  for  larceny  —  we  mean  as 
to  that  enactment  which  fixed  the  minimum  for  a 
capital  offence.  This  case  is  noticed  by  the  bishop, 
and  juries  of  late  years  often  took  the  casuistry  into 
their  own  hands.  They  were  generally  thought  to  act 
with  no  more  than  a  proper  humanity  to  the  prisoner ; 
but  still  people  thought  such  juries  incorrect.  Where- 
as, if  Bishop  Gibson  is  right,  who  allows  a  man  to 
swear  positively  that  he  has  not  c£5  a-year,  when 
nominally  he  has  much  more,  such  juries  were  even 
technically  right.  However,  this  point  is  now  altered 
by  Sir  Robert  Peel's  reforms.  But  there  are  other 
cases,  and  especially  those  which  arise  not  between 
different  times  but  between  different  places,  which  will 
often  require  the  same  kind  of  casuistry  as  that  which 
is  so  ably  applied  by  the  good  and  learned  bishop. 

V.  Suicide.  —  It  seems  passing  strange  that  the 
main  argument  upon  which  Pagan  moralists  relied  in 
their  unconditional  condemnation  of  suicide,  viz.  the 
supposed  analogy  of  our  situation  in  life  to  that  of  a 
sentinel  mounting  guard,  who  cannot,  without  a  capital 
offence,  quit  his  station  until  called  off  by  his  com- 


228  CASUISTRY. 

manding  officer,  is  dismissed  with  contempt  by  a 
Christian  moralist,  viz.  Paley.  But  a  stranger  thing 
still  is  —  that  the  only  man  who  ever  wrote  a  book  in 
palliation  of  suicide,  should  have  been  not  only  a 
Christian  —  not  only  an  official  minister  and  dignitary 
of  a  metropolitan  Christian  church  —  but  also  a  scru- 
pulously pious  man.  We  allude,  as  the  reader  will 
suppose,  to  Dr.  Donne,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  His  opinion 
is  worthy  of  consideration.  Not  that  we  would  wil- 
lingly diminish,  by  one  hair's  weight,  the  reasons 
against  suicide  ;  but  it  is  never  well  to  rely  upon 
ignorance  or  inconsideration  for  the  defence  of  any 
principle  whatever.  Donne's  notion  was,  (a  notion, 
however,  adopted  in  his  earlier  years,)  that  as  we  do 
not  instantly  pronounce  a  man  a  murderer  upon  hear- 
ing that  he  has  killed  a  fellow-creature,  but,  according 
tO'  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  pronounce  his  act 
either  murder,  or  manslaughter,  or  justifiable  homi- 
cide ;  so  by  parity  of  reason,  suicide  is  open  to 
distinctions  of  the  same  or  corresponding  kinds  ;  that 
there  may  be  such  a  thing  as  self-homicide  not  less 
than  self-murder — culpable  self-homicide — justifia- 
ble self-homicide.  Donne  called  his  Essay  by  the 
Greek  name  Biathaiiatos,  ^  meaning  violent  death. 
But  a  thing  equally  strange  and  a  blasphemy  almost 
unaccountable,  is  the  fancy  of  a  Prussian  or  Saxon 
baron,  who  wrote  a  book  to  prove  that  Christ  commit- 
ted suicide,  for  which  he  had  no  other  argument  than 
that,  in  fact,  he  had  surrendered  himself  unresistingly 
into  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  and  had  in  a  manner 
caused  his  own  death.  This,  however,  describes  the 
case  of  every  martyr  that  ever  was  or  can  be.     It  is 


A 


CASUISTRY.  229 

the  very  merit  and  grandeur  of  the  nnartyr,  that  he 
proclaims  the  truth  with  his  eyes  open  to  the  conse- 
quences of  proclaiming  it.  Those  consequences  are 
connected  with  the  truth,  but  not  by  a  natural  link  : 
the  connection  is  by  means  of  false  views,  which  it  is 
the  very  business  of  the  martyr  to  destroy.  And,  if  a 
man  founds  my  death  upon  an  act  which  my  con- 
science enjoys,  even  though  I  am  aware  and  fully 
warned  that  he  will  found  my  death  upon  it,  I  am  not, 
therefore,  guilty  of  suicide.  For,  by  the  supposition, 
I  was  obliged  to  the  act  in  question  by  the  highest  of 
all  obligations,  viz.  moral  obligation,  which  far  trans- 
cends all  physical  obligation  ;  so  that,  whatever  excuse 
attaches  to  a  physical  necessity,  attaches,  a  fortiori, 
to  the  moral  necessity.  The  case  is,  therefore,  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  if  he  had  said,  — '  I  will  put  you  to 
death  if  the  frost  benumbs  your  feet.'  The  answer  is 
— '  I  cannot  help  this  effect  of  frost.'  Far  less  can  I 
help  revealing  a  celestial  truth.  I  have  no  power,  no 
liberty,  to  forbear.  And,  in  killing  me,  he  punishes 
me  for  a  mere  necessity  of  my  situation  and  my 
knowledge. 

It  is  urged  that  brutes  never  commit  suicide  —  ex- 
cept, indeed,  the  salamander,  who  has  been  suspected 
of  loose  principles  in  this  point  ;  and  we  ourselves 
know  a  man  who  constantly  affirmed  that  a  horse  of 
his  had  committed  suicide,  by  violently  throwing  him- 
self from  the  summit  of  a  precipice.  '  But  why,' —  as 
we  still  asked  him  —  'why  should  the  horse  have  com- 
mitted felony  on  himself?  Were  oats  rising  in  the 
market  ?  —  or  was  he  in  love  ?  —  or  vexed  by  politics  ? 
—  or  could  a  horse,  and  a  young  one  rising  four,  be 


230  CASmSTRY. 

supposed  to  suffer  from  tcedium  vit.ce?''  Meantime,  as 
respects  the  general  question  of  brute  suicides,  two 
points  must  be  regarded, —  1st,  That  brutes  are  cut 
off  from  the  vast  world  of  morcd  and  imaginative  suf- 
ferings entailed  upon  man ;  2dly,  That  this  very  im- 
munity presupposes  another  immunity  — 

*  A  cool  suspense  from  pleasure  and  from  pain,' 

in  the  far  coarser  and  less  irritable  animal  organization 
which  must  be  the  basis  of  an  insulated  physical  sen- 
sibility. Brutes  can  neither  suffer  from  intellectual 
passions,  nor,  probably,  from  very  complex  derange- 
ments of  the  animal  system  ;  so  that  in  them  the  mo- 
tives to  suicide,  the  temptations  to  suicide,  are  prodigi- 
ously diminished.  Nor  are  they  ever  alive  to  '  the 
sublime  attractions  of  the  grave.'  It  is,  however,  a 
humiliating  reflection,  that,  if  any  brutes  can  feel  such 
aspirations,  it  must  be  those  which  are  under  the  care 
of  man.  Doub  less  the  happiness  of  brutes  is  some- 
times extended  by  man  ;  but  also,  too  palpably,  their 
misery. 

^\'hy  suicide  is  not  noticed  in  the  New  Testament  is 
a  problem  yet  open  to  the  profound  investigator. 

VI.  Duelling.  —  No  one  case,  in  the  vast  volume  of 
casuistry,  is  so  difficult  to  treat  with  justice  and  reason- 
able adaptation  to  the  spirit  of  modern  times,  as  this  of 
duelling.  For,  as  to  those  who  reason  all  upon  one 
side,  and  never  hearken  in  good  faith  to  objections  or 
difficulties,  such  people  convince  nobody  but  those 
who  were  already  convinced  before  they  began.  At 
present,  (1839,)  society  has  for  some  years  been  tak- 
ing a  lurch  to  one  side  against  duelling :  but  inevita- 


CiSDISTEY.  231 

bly  a  reaction  will  succeed  ;  for,  after  all,  be  it  as 
much  opposed  as  it  may  to  Christianity,  duelling 
performs  such  important  functions  in  society  as  now 
constituted  —  we  mean  by  the  sense  of  instant  per- 
sonal accountability  which  it  diffuses  universally 
amongst  gentlemen,  and  all  who  have  much  sensibility 
to  the  point  of  honor  —  that,  for  one  life  which  it  takes 
away  as  an  occasional  sacrifice,  it  saves  myriads  from 
outrage  and  affronts  —  millions  from  the  anxiety  at- 
tached to  inferior  bodily  strength.  However,  it  is  no 
part  of  our  present  purpose  to  plead  the  cause  of  duel- 
ling, though  pleaded  it  must  be,  more  fairly  than  it 
ever  has  been,  before  any  progress  will  be  made  in 
suppressing  it. 

But  the  point  which  we  wish  to  notice  at  present,  is 
the  .universal  blunder  about  the  Romans  and  Greeks. 
They,  it  is  alleged,  fought  no  duels ;  and  occasion  is 
thence  taken  to  make  very  disadvantageous  reflections 
upon  us,  the  men  of  this  Christian  era,  who,  in  de- 
fiance of  our  greater  light,  do  fight  duels.  Lord  Bacon 
himself  is  duped  by  this  enormous  blunder,  and  founds 
upon  it  a  long  speech  in  the  Star-Chambcr. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  who  does  not  see  that,  if  the 
Pagans  really  were  enabled  by  their  religion  to  master 
their  movements  of  personal  anger  and  hatred,  the  in- 
evitable inference  will  be  to  the  disadvantage  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  would  be  a  clear  case.  Christianity  and 
Paganism  have  been  separately  tried  as  means  of  self- 
control ;  Christianity  has  flagrantly  failed;  Paganism 
succeeded  universally  ;  not  having  been  found  unequal 
to  the  task  in  any  one  known  instance. 

But  this   is  not  so.     A  profounder  error  never  ex- 


232  CASUISTRY. 

isted.  No  religious  influence  whatever  restrained  the 
Greek  or  the  Roman  from  fighting  a  duel.  It  was 
purely  a  civic  influence,  and  it  was  sustained  by  this 
remarkable  usage  —  in  itself  a  standing  opprobrium  to 
both  Greek  and  Roman  — viz.  the  unlimited  license  of 
tongue  allowed  to  anger  in  the  ancient  assemblies  and 
senates.  This  liberty  of  foul  language  operated  in  two 
ways  :  1st,  Being  universal,  it  took  away  all  ground 
for  feeling  the  words  of  an  antagonist  as  any  personal 
insult ;  so  he  had  rarely  a  motive  for  a  duel.  2dly, 
The  anger  was  thus  less  acute  ;  yet,  if  it  were  acute, 
then  this  Billingsgate  resource  furnished  an  instanta- 
neous vehicle  for  expectorating  the  wrath.  Look,  for 
example,  at  Cicero's  orations  against  Mark  Antony, 
or  Catiline,  or  against  Piso,  This  last  person  was  a 
senator  of  the  very  highest  rank,  family,  connections; 
yet,  in  the  course  of  a  few  pages,  does  Cicero,  a  man  of 
letters,  polished  to  the  extreme  standard  of  Rome,  ad- 
dress him  by  the  elegant  appellations  of  'filth,'  'mud,' 
'  carrion,'  {projectum  cadaver.)  How  could  Piso  have 
complained  .?  It  would  have  been  said  — '  Oh,  there's 
an  end  of  republican  simplicity,  if  plain  speaking  is  to 
be  put  down.'  And  then  it  would  have  been  added 
invidiously  —  'Better  men  than  ever  stood  in  your 
shoes  have  borne  worse  language.  Will  you  complain 
of  what  was  tolerated  by  Africanus,  by  Paul  us  JEmi' 
lius,  by  Marius,  by  Sylla? '  Who  could  reply  to  that.? 
And  why  should  Piso  have  even  wished  to  call  out  his 
foul-mouthed  antagonist  ?  On  the  contrary,  a  far  more 
genial  revenge  awaited  him  than  any  sword  could  have 
furnished.  Pass  but  an  hour,  and  you  will  hear  Piso 
speaking — it  will  then  be  his  turn —  every  dog  has  his 


CASUISTEY.  233 

day ;  and,  though  not  quite  so  eloquent  as  his  brilliant 
enemy,  he  is  yet  eloquent  enough  for  the  purposes  of 
revenge  —  he  is  eloquent  enough  to  call  Cicero  '  filth,' 
'  mud,'  carrion.' 

No :  the  reason  of  our  modern  duelling  lies  deeper 
than  is  supposed  ;  it  lies  in  the  principle  of  honor  —  a 
direct  product  of  chivalry  —  as  that  was  in  part  a 
product  of  Christianity.  The  sense  of  honor  did  not 
exist  in  Pagan  times.  Natural  equity,  and  the  equity 
of  civil  laws— those  were  the  two  moral  forces  under 
which  men  acted.  Honor  applies  to  cases  where  both 
those  forces  are  silent.  And  precisely  because  they 
had  no  such  sense,  and  because  their  revenge  emptied 
itself  by  the  basest  of  all  channels,  viz.  foul  speaking 
and  license  of  tongue,  was  it  that  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans had  no  duelling.  It  was  no  glory  to  them  that 
they  had  not,  but  the  foulest  blot  on  their  moral  gran- 
deur. 

How  it  was  that  Christianity  was  able,  mediately,  to 
generate  the  principle  of  honor,  is  a  separate  problem. 
But  this  is  the  true  solution  of  that  common  casuistical 
question  about  duelling. 


234  CASUISTRY.  ' 

PART   II. 

'  C'elebrare  domestica  facta.'  — lIoB. 

In  a  former  notice  of  Casuistry,  we  touched  on  such 
cases  only  as  were  of  public  bearings,  or  such  as  (if 
private)  were  of  rare  occurrence  and  of  a  tragical 
standard.  But  ordinary  life,  in  its  most  domestic  paths, 
teems  with  cases  of  difficult  decision  ;  or  if  not  always 
difficult  in  the  decision  of  the  abstract  question  at  issue, 
difficult  in  the  accommodation  of  that  decision  to  imme- 
diate practice.  A  few  of  these  more  homely  cases, 
intermixed  with  more  public  ones,  we  shall  here  select 
and  review ;  for,  according  to  a  remark  in  our  first 
paper,  as  social  economy  grows  more  elaborate,  the 
demand  grows  more  intense  for  such  circumstantial 
morality.  As  man  advances,  casuistry  advances. 
Principles  are  the  same  :  but  the  abstraction  of  prin- 
ciples from  accidents  and  circumstances  becomes  a 
work  of  more  effort.  Aristotle,  in  his  Nicomachean 
Ethics,  has  not  one  case  ;  Cicero,  three  hundred  years 
after,  has  a  few ;  Paley,  eighteen  hundred  years  after 
Cicero,  has  many. 

There  is  also  something  in  place  as  well  as  in  time 
—  in  the  people  as  well  as  the  century  —  which  deter- 
mines the  amount  of  interest  in  casuistry.  We  once 
heard  an  eminent  person  delivering  it  as  an  opin- 
ion, derived  from  a  good  deal  of  personal  experi- 
ence—  that  of  all  European  nations^  the  British  was 
that  which  suffered  most  from  remorse ;  and  that,  if 
internal  struggles,  during  temptation,  or  suflferings  of 
mind  after  yielding  to  temptation,  were  of  a  nature  to 
be  measured  upon  a  scale,  or  could  express  themselves 


CASUISTRY.  235 

sensibly  to  human  knowledge,  the  annual  report  from 
Great  Britain,  its  annual  balance-sheet,  by  comparison 
with  those  from  continental  Europe,  would  show  a 
large  excess.  At  the  time  of  hearing  this  remarkable 
opinion,  we,  the  hearers,  were  young ;  and  we  had 
little  other  ground  for  assent  or  dissent,  than  such  gen- 
eral impressions  of  national  differences  as  we  might 
happen  to  have  gathered  from  tl^e  several  literatures  of 
Christian  nations.  These  were  of  a  nature  to  confirm 
the  stranger's  verdict;  and  it  will  not  be  denied  that 
much  of  national  character  comes  forward  in  literature  : 
but  these  were  not  sufficient.  Since  then,  we  have  had 
occasion  to  think  closely  on  that  question.  We  have 
had  occasion  to  review  the  public  records  of  Christen- 
dom; and  beyond  all  doubt  the  public  conscience,  the 
international  conscience,  of  a  people,  is  the  reverbera- 
tion of  its  private  conscience.  History  is  but  the  con- 
verging into  a  focus  of  what  is  moving  in  the  domestic 
life  below  ;  a  set  of  great  circles  expressing  and  sum- 
ming up,  on  the  dial-plate,  the  motions  of  many  little 
circles  in  the  machinery  within.  Now  History,  what 
may  be  called  the  Comparative  History  of  Modern 
Europe,  countersigns  the  traveller's  opinion. 

'  So,  then,'  says  a  foreigner,  or  an  Englishman  with 
foreign  sympathies,  '  the  upshot  and  amount  of  this 
doctrine  is,  that  England  is  more  moral  than  other 
nations.'  'Well,' we  answer, 'and  wiiat  of  that.''  Ob- 
serve, however,  that  the  doctrine  went  no  farther  than 
as  to  conscientiousness ;  the  principle  out  of  which 
comes  sorrow  for  all  violation  of  duty  ;  out  of  which 
comes  a  high  standard  of  duty.  Meantime  both  the 
'  sorrow  '  and  the  '  high  standard '  arc  very  compatible 


236  CASUISTRY. 

with  a  lax  performance.  But  suppose  we  had  gone  as 
far  as  the  objector  supposes,  and  had  ascribed  a  moral 
superiority  every  way  to  England,  what  is  there  in  that 
to  shock  probability  ?  Whether  the  general  probability 
from  analogy,  or  the  special  probability  from  the  cir- 
cumstances of  this  particular  case  ?  We  all  know  that 
there  is  no  general  improbability  in  supposing  one  na- 
tion, or  one  race,  to  outrun  another.  The  modern  Ital- 
ians have  excelled  all  nations  in  musical  sensibility,  and 
in  genius  for  painting.  They  have  produced  far  better 
music  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put  together.  And 
four  of  their  great  painters  have  not  been  appi-oached 
hitherto  by  the  painters  of  any  nation.  That  facial 
structure,  again,  which  is  called  the  Caucasian,  and 
which,  through  the  ancient  Greeks,  has  travelled  west- 
ward to  the  nations  of  Christendom,  and  from  them 
(chiefly  ourselves)  has  become  the  Transatlantic  face, 
is,  past  all  disputing,  the  finest  type  of  the  human 
countenance  divine  on  this  planet.  And  most  other 
nations,  Asiatic  or  African,  have  hitherto  put  up  with 
this  insult ;  except,  indeed,  the  Kalmuck  Tartars,  who 
are  highly  indignant  at  our  European  vanity  in  this 
matter;  and  some  of  them,  says  Bergmann,  the  Ger- 
man traveller,  absolutely  howl  with  rage,  whilst  others 
only  laugh  hysterically,  at  any  man's  having  the  insan- 
ity to  prefer  the  Grecian  features  to  the  Kalmuck. 
Again,  amongst  the  old  pagan  nations,  the  Romans 
seem  to  have  had  '  the  call '  for  going  ahead  ;  and 
they  fulfilled  their  destiny  in  spite  of  all  that  the  rest 
of  the  world  could  do  to  prevent  them.  So  that,  far 
from  it  being  an  improbable  or  unreasonable  assump- 
tion, superiority  (of  one  kind  or  other)  has  been  the 


CASUISTRY.  237 

indefeasible  inheritance  of  this  and  that  nation,  at  all 
periods  of  history. 

Still  less  is  the  notion  tenable  of  any  special  improb- 
ability applying  to  this  particular  pretension.  For  cen- 
turies has  England  enjoyed  —  1st,  civil  liberty ;  2d, 
the  Protestant  faith.  Now  in  those  two  advantages 
are  laid  the  grounds,  the  very  necessities,  a  priori,  of 
a  superior  morality.  But  watch  the  inconsistency  of 
men:  ask  one  of  these  men  who  dispute  this  English 
pretension  mordicus ;  ask  him,  or  bid  an  Austrian  serf 
ask  him,  what  are  the  benefits  of  Protestantism,  and 
what  the  benefits  of  liberty,  that  he  should  risk  any- 
thing to  obtain  either.  Hear  how  eloquently  he  insists 
upon  their  beneficial  results,  severally  and  jointly ; 
and  notice  that  he  places  foremost  among  those  re- 
sults a  pure  morality.  Is  he  wrong  ?  No :  the  man 
speaks  bare  truth.  But  what  brute  oblivion  he  mani- 
fests of  his  own  doctrine,  in  taxing  with  arrogance  any 
people  for  claiming  one  of  those  results  m  esse,  which 
he  himself  could  see  so  clearly  in  posse  !  Talk  no 
more  of  freedom,  or  of  a  pure  religion,  as  fountains  of 
a  moral  pre-eminence,  if  those  who  have  possessed 
them  in  combination  for  the  longest  space  of  time 
may  not,  without  arrogance,  claim  the  van  ward  place 
amongst  the  nations  of  Europe. 

So  far  as  to  the  presumptions,  general  or  special; 
80  far  as  to  the  probabilities,  analogous  or  direct,  in 
countenance  of  this  British  claim.  Finally,  when  we 
come  to  the  proofs,  from  fact  and  historical  experience, 
we  might  appeal  to  a  singular  case  in  the  records  of 
our  Exchequer;  viz.,  that  for  much  more  than  a  cen- 
tury back,  our  Gazette  and  other  public  advertisers, 


238  CASUISTRY. 

have  acknowledged  a  series  of  anonymous  remittarrces 
from  tliose  who,  at  some  time  or  other,  had  appro- 
priated public  money.  We  understand  that  no  corres- 
ponding fact  can  be  cited  from  foreign  records.  Now, 
this  is  a  direct  instance  of  that  compunction  which  our 
travelled  friend  insisted  on.  But  we  choose  rather  to 
throw  ourselves  upon  the  general  history  of  Great 
Britain,  upon  the  spirit  of  her  policy,  domestic  or 
foreign,  and  upon  the  universal  principles  of  her  public 
morality.  Take  the  case  of  public  debts,  and  the 
fulfilment  of  contracts  to  those  who  could  not  have 
compelled  the  fulfilment ;  we  first  set  this  precedent. 
All  nations  have  now  learned  that  honesty  in  such 
cases  is  eventually  the  best  policy ;  but  this  they 
learned  from  our  experience,  and  not  till  nearly  all  of 
them  had  tried  the  other  policy.  We  it  was,  who, 
under  the  most  trying  circumstances  of  war,  main- 
tained the  sanctity  from  taxation  of  all  foreign  invest- 
ments in  our  funds.  Our  conduct  with  regard  to  slaves, 
whether  in  the  case  of  slavery  or  of  the  slave-trade  — 
how  prudent  it  may  always  have  been,  we  need  not 
inquire  ;  as  to  its  moral  principles,  they  went  so  far 
ahead  of  European  standards,  that  we  were  neither 
comprehended  nor  believed.  The  perfection  of  romance 
was  ascribed  to  us  by  all  who  did  not  reproach  us  with 
the  perfection  of  Jesuitical  knavery;  by  many  our 
nlotto  was  supposed  to  be  no  longer  the  old  one  of 
^divide  et  impera,''  but  '■  annihila  el  appropria.'' 
Finally,  looking  back  to  our  dreadful  conflicts  with 
the  three  conquering  despots  of  modern  history,  Philip 
II.  of  Spain,  Louis  XIV.,  and  Napoleon,  we  may 
incontestably  boast  of  having   been  single   in   main- 


CASUISTRY.  239 

taining  the  general  equities  of  Europe  by  war  upon 
a  colossal  scale,  and  by  our  councils  in  the  general 
congresses  of  Christendom. 

Such  a  review  would  amply  justify  the  traveller's 
remarkable  dictum  upon  the  principle  of  remorse,  and 
therefore  of  conscientiousness,  as  existing  in  greater 
strength  amongst  the  people  of  Great  Britain.  In  the 
same  proportion  we  may  assume,  in  such  a  people,  a 
keener  sensibility  to  moral  distinctions  ;  more  attention 
to  shades  of  difference  in  the  modes  of  action  ;  more 
anxiety  as  to  the  grounds  of  action.  In  the  same  pro- 
portion we  may  assume  a  growing  and  more  direct 
regard  to  casuistry ;  which  is  precisely  the  part  of 
ethics  that  will  be  continually  expanding,  and  contin- 
ually throwing  up  fresh  doubts.  Not  as  though  a 
moral  principle  could  ever  be  doubtful.  But  that  the 
growing  complexity  of  the  circumstances  will  make  it 
more  and  more  difficult  in  judgment  to  detach  the 
principle  from  the  case  ;  or,  in  practice,  to  determine 
the  application  of  tlie  principle  to  the  facts.  It  will 
happen,  therefore,  as  Mr.  Coleridge  used  to  say  hap- 
pened in  all  cases  of  importance,  that  extremes  meet: 
for  casuistical  ethics  will  be  most  consulted  by  two 
classes  the  most  opposite  to  each  other  —  by  those 
who  seek  excuses  for  evading  their  duties,  and  by  those 
who  seek  a  special  fulness  of  light  for  fulfilling  them. 

Case  I. 

HEALTH . 

Strange  it  is,  that  moral  treatises,  when  professing 
to  lay  open  the  great  edifice  of  human  duties,  and  to 


240  CASUISTRY. 

expose  its  very  foundations,  should  not  have  begun 
with,  nay,  should  not  have  noticed  at  all,  those  duties 
which  a  man  owes  to  himself,  and,  foremost  amongst 
them,  the  duty  of  cultivating  his  own  health.  For  it  is 
evident,  that,  from  mere  neglect  of  that  one  personal 
duty,  with  the  very  best  intentions  possible,  all  other 
duties  whatever  may  become  impossible ;  for  good 
intentions  exist  in  all  stages  of  efficiency,  from  the 
fugitive  impulse  to  the  realizing  self-determination. 
In  this  life,  the  elementary  blessing  is  health.  What ! 
do  we  presume  to  place  it  before  peace  of  mind  ? 
Far  from  it ;  but  we  speak  of  the  genesis ;  of  the  suc- 
cession in  which  all  blessings  descend  ;  not  as  to  time, 
but  the  order  of  dependency.  All  morality  implies 
free  agency  :  it  presumes  beyond  all  other  conditions 
an  agent  who  is  in  perfect  possession  of  his  own  voli- 
tions. Now,  it  is  certain  that  a  man  without  health  is 
not  uniformly  master  of  his  own  purposes.  Often  he 
cannot  be  said  either  to  be  in  the  path  of  duty  or  oui 
of  it ;  so  incoherent  are  the  actions  of  a  man  forced 
back  continually  from  the  objects  of  his  intellect  and 
choice  upon  some  alien  objects  dictated  by  internal 
wretchedness.  It  is  true  that,  by  possibility,  some 
derangements  of  the  human  system  are  not  incom- 
patible with  happiness :  and  a  celebrated  German 
author  of  the  last  century.  Von  Hardenberg  —  better 
known  by  his  assumed  name  of  Novalis  —  maintained, 
that  certain  modes  of  ill  health,  or  valetudinarianism, 
were  pre-requisites  towards  certain  modes  of  intel- 
lectual development.  But  the  ill  health  to  which  he 
pointed  could  not  have  gone  beyond  a  luxurious  indis- 
position \  nor  the  corresponding  intellectual  purposes 


CASUISTRY.  241 

liave  been  other  than  narrow,  fleeting,  and  anomalous. 
Inflammatory  action,  in  its  earlier  stages,  is  sometimes 
connected  with  voluptuous  sensations  :  so  is  the  preter- 
natural stimulation  of  the  liver.  But  these  states,  as 
pleasurable  states,  are  transitory.  All  fixed  derange- 
ments of  the  health  are  doubly  hostile  to  the  moral 
energies  :  first,  through  the  intellect,  which  they  debil- 
itate unconsciously  in  many  ways ;  and  next,  both 
consciously  and  semi-consciously,  through  the  will. 
The  judgment  is,  perhaps,  too  clouded  to  fix  upon  a 
right  purpose  :  the  will  too  enfeebled  to  pursue  it. 

Two  general  remarks  may  be  applied  to  all  inter- 
ferences of  the  physical  with  the  moral  sanity ;  1st, 
That  it  is  not  so  much  by  absolute  deductions  of  time 
that  ill  health  operates  upon  the  serviceableness  of  a 
man,  as  by  its  lingering  effects  upon  his  temper  and 
his  animal  spirits.  Many  a  man  has  not  lost  one  hour 
of  his  life  from  illness,  whose  faculties  of  usefulness 
have  been  most  seriously  impaired  through  gloom,  or 
untuned  feelings;  2d,  That  it  is  not  the  direct  and 
known  risks  to  our  health  which  act  with  the  most 
fatal  effects,  but  the  semi-conscious  condition,  the 
atmosphere  of  circumstances,  with  which  artificial  life 
surrounds  us.  The  great  cities  of  Europe,  perhaps 
London  beyond  all  others,  under  the  modern  modes 
of  life  and  business,  create  a  vortex  of  preternatural 
tumult,  a  rush  and  frenzy  of  excitement,  which  is  fatal 
to  far  more  than  are  heard  of  as  express  victims  to 
that  system. 

The  late  Lord  Londonderry's  nervous  seizure  was 
no  solitary  or  rare  case.    So  much  we  happen  to  know. 
We  arc  well  assured  by  medical  men  of  great  London 
16 


242  *  CASUISTRY. 

practice,  that  the  case  is  one  of  growing  frequency. 
In  Lord  Londonderry  it  attracted  notice  for  reasons 
of  obvious  personal  interest,  as  well  as  its  tragical 
catastrophe.  But  the  complaint,  though  one  of  modern 
growth,  is  well  known,  and  comes  forward  under  a 
most  determinate  type  as  to  symptoms,  among  the 
mercantile  class.  The  original  predisposition  to  it, 
lies  permanently  in  the  condition  of  London  life,  espe- 
cially as  it  exists  for  public  men.  But  the  immediate 
existing  cause,  which  fires  the  train  always  ready  for 
explosion,  is  invariably  some  combination  of  per- 
plexities, such  as  are  continually  gathering  into  dark 
clouds  over  the  heads  of  great  merchants ;  sometimes 
only  teasing  and  molesting,  sometimes  menacing  and 
alarming.  These  perplexities  are  generally  moving 
in  counteracting  paths  :  some  progressive,  some  retro- 
grade. There  lies  a  man's  safety.  But  at  times  it 
will  happen  that  all  comes  at  once  ;  and  then  comes  a 
shock  such  as  no  brain  already  predisposed  by  a 
London  life,  is  strong  enough  (but  more  truly  let  us 
say  —  coarse  enough)  to  support. 

Lord  Londonderry's  case  was  precisely  of  that 
order :  he  had  been  worried  by  a  long  session  of 
Parliament,  which  adds  the  crowning  irritation  in  the 
interruption  of.  sleep.  The  nervous  system,  ploughed 
up  by  intense  wear  and  tear,  is  denied  the  last  resource 
of  natural  relief.  In  this  crisis,  already  perilous,  a 
new  tempest  was  called  in  —  of  all  the  most  terrific  — 
the  tempest  of  anxiety  :  and  from  what  source  ?  Anx- 
iety from  fear,  is  bad  :  from  hope  delayed,  is  bad  : 
but  worst  of  all  is  anxiety  from  responsibility,  in  cases 
where  disease  or  weakness  makes  a  man  feel  that  he 


CASUISTRY.  243 

■>* 
is  unequal  to  the  burden.     The  diplomatic  interests  of 

the  country  had  been  repeatedly  confided  to  Lord  Lon- 
donderry :  he  had  justified  that  confidence  :  he  had 
received  affecting  testimonies  of  the  honor  which 
belonged  to  such  a  situation.  But  a  short  time  before 
bis  fatal  seizure,  in  passing  through  Birmingham  at  a 
moment  when  all  the  gentleme.i  of  the  place  were 
assembled,  he  had  witnessed  the  whole  assembly  —  no 
mob,  but  the  collective  good  sense  of  the  place  —  by 
one  impulse  standing  bareheaded  in  his  presence, — 
a  tribute  of  disinterested  homage  which  affected  him 
powerfully,  and  which  was  well  understood  as  offered 
to  his  foreign  diplomacy.  Under  these  circumstances 
could  he  bear  to  transfer  or  delegate  the  business  of 
future  negotiation  ?  Could  he  suffer  to  lapse  into  other 
hands,  as  a  derelict,  the  consummation  of  that  task 
which  thus  far  he  had  so  prosperously  conducted  ? 
Was  it  in  human  nature  to  do  so  ?  He  felt  the  same 
hectic  of  human  passion  which  Lord  Nelson  felt  in  the 
very  gates  of  death,  when  some  act  of  command  was 
thoughtlessly  suggested  as  belonging  to  his  successor 
— '  Not  whilst  I  live,  Hardy ;  not  whilst  I  live.'  Yet,  in 
Lord  Londonderry's  case,  it  was  necessary,  if  he  would 
not  transfer  the  trust,  that  he  should  rally  his  energies 
instantly :  for  a  new  Congress  was  even  then  assem- 
bling. There  was  no  delay  open  to  him  by  the  nature 
of  the  case  :  the  call  was —  noii\  now^  just  as  you  are, 
my  lord,  with  those  shattered  nerves  and  that  agitated 
brain,  take  charge  of  interests  the  most  complex  in 
Christendom  :  to  say  the  truth,  of  interests  which  are 
those  of  Christendom. 

This  struggle,  between  a  nervous  system  too  griev- 


244  CASUISTRY, 

« 

ously  shaken,  and  the  instant  demand  for  energy  seven 
times  intensified,  was  too  much  for  any  generous  na- 
ture. A  ceremonial  embassy  might  have  been  ful- 
filled by  shattered  nerves ;  but  not  this  embassy. 
Anxiety  supervening  upon  nervous  derangement  was 
bad ;  anxiety  through  responsibility  was  worse ;  but 
through  a  responsibility  created  by  grateful  confidence, 
it  was  an  appeal  through  the  very  pangs  of  martyr- 
dom. No  brain  could  stand  such  a  siege.  Lord  Lon- 
donderry's gave  way  ;  and  he  fell  whh  the  tears  of  the 
generous,  even  where  they  might  happen  to  differ  from 
him  in  politics. 

Meantime,  this  case,  belonging  to  a  class  generated 
by  a  London  life,  was  in  some  quarters  well  understood 
even  then ;  now,  it  is  well  known  that,  had  differ- 
ent remedies  been  applied,  or  had  the  sufferer  been 
able  to  stand  up  under  his  torture  until  the  cycle  of 
the  symptoms  had  begun  to  come  round,  he  might 
have  been  saved.  The  treatment  is  now  well  under- 
stood ;  but  even  then  it  was  understood  by  some  phy- 
sicians ;  amongst  others  by  that  Dr.  Willis  who  had 
attended  George  IIL  In  several  similar  cases  over- 
powering doses  had  been  given  of  opium,  or  of  bran- 
dy; and  usually  a  day  or  two  had  carried  off  the 
oppression  of  the  brain  by  a  tremendous  reaction. 

In  Birmingham  and  other  towns,  where  the  body  of 
people  called  Quakers  are  accumulated,  different  forms 
of  nervous  derangement  are  developed ;  the  secret 
principle  of  which  turns  not,  as  in  these  London  cases, 
upon  feelings  too  much  called  out  by  preternatural 
stimulation,  but  upon  feelings  too  much  repelled  and 
driven  in.      Morbid  suppression  of  deep  sensibilities 


CASUISTRY.  a 

must  lead  to  states  of  disease  equally  terrific  and  per- 
haps even  less  tractable  ;  not  so  sudden  and  critical 
perhaps,  but  more  settled  and  gloomy.  We  speak  not 
of  any  physical  sensibilities,  but  of  those  which  are 
purely  moral  —  sensibilities  to  poetic  emotions,  to  am- 
bition, to  social  gaiety.  Accordingly  it  is  amongst  the 
young  men  and  women  of  this  body  that  the  most 
afflicting  cases  under  this  type  occur.  Even  for  chil- 
dren, however,  the  systematic  repression  of  all  ebul- 
lient feeling,  under  the  Quaker  discipline,  must  be 
sometimes  perilous ;  and  would  be  more  so,  were  it 
not  for  that  marvellous  flexibility  with  which  nature 
adapts  herself  to  all  changes  —  whether  imposed  by 
climate  or  by  situation  —  by  inflictions  of  Providence 
or  by  human  spirit  of  system. 

These  cases  we  point  to  as  formidable  mementos, 
monumenta  sacra,  of  those  sudden  catastrophes  which 
either  ignorance  of  what  concerns  the  health,  or  neg- 
lect in  midst  of  knowledge,  may  produce.  Any 
mode  of  life  in  London,  or  not  in  London,  which  trains 
the  nerves  to  a  state  of  permanent  irritation,  prepares 
a  nidus  for.  disease  ;  and  unhappily  not  for  chronic 
disease  only,  but  for  disease  of  that  kind  which  finishes 
the  struggle  almost  before  it  is  begun.  In  such  a  state 
of  habitual  training  for  morbid  action,  it  may  happen 
—  and  often  has  happened  —  that  one  and  the  same 
week  sees  the  victim  apparently  well  and  in  his  grave. 

These,  indeed,  are  extreme  cases  :  though  still  such 
as  threaten  many  more  than  they  actually  strike ;  for, 
though  uncommon,  they  grow  out  of  very  common 
habits.  But  even  the  ordinary  cases  of  unhealthy 
action  in  the  system,  are  sufficient  to  account  for  per- 


246  ~  CASUISTRY. 

haps  three-fourths  of  all  the  disquiet  and  bad  temper 
which  disfigure  daily  life.  Not  one  man  in  every  ten 
is  perfectly  clear  of  some  disorder,  more  or  less,  in 
the  digestive  system  —  not  one  man  in  fifty  enjoys  the 
absolutely  normal  state  of  that  organ  ;  and  upon  that 
depends  the  daily  cheerfulness,  in  the  first  place,  and 
through  that  •  (as  well  as  by  more  direct  actions)  the 
sanity  of  the  judgment.  To  speak  strictly,  not  one 
man  in  a  hundred  is  perfectly  sane  even  as  to  his 
mind.  For,  though  the  greater  disturbances  of  the 
mind  do  not  take  place  in  more  than  one  man  of  each 
thousand,^  the  slighter  shades  that  settle  on  the  judg- 
ment, which  daily  bring  up  thoughts  such  as  a  man 
would  gladly  banish,  which  force  him  into  moods  of 
feeling  irritating  at  the  moment,  and  wearing  to  the 
animal  spirits,  —  these  derangements  are  universal. 

From  the  greater  alike  and  the  lesser,  no  man  can 
free  himself  but  in  the  proportion  of  his  available 
knowledge  applied  to  his  own  animal  system,  and  of 
the  surrounding  circumstances,  as  constantly  acting  on 
that  system.  Would  we,  then,  desire  that  every  man 
should  interrupt  his  proper  studies  or  pursuits  for  the 
sake  of  studying  medicine  ?  Not  at  all :  nor  is  that 
requisite.  The  laws  of  health  are  as  simple  as  the 
elements  of  arithmetic  or  geometry.  It  is  required 
only  that  a  man  should  open  his  eyes  to  perceive  the 
three  great  "forces  which  support  health. 

They  are  these :  1.  The  hlood  requires  exercise  : 
2.  The  great  central  organ  of  the  stomach  requires 
adaptation  of  diet:  3.  The  nervous  system  requires 
regularity  of  sleep.  In  those  three  functions  of  sleep, 
diet,    exercise,   is   contained   the    whole    economy  of 


CASUISTRY.  247 

health.  All  three  of  course  act  and  react  upon 
each  other :  and  all  three  are  wofully  deranged  by  a 
London  life  —  above  all,  by  a  parliamentary  life.  As 
to  the  first  point,  it  is  probable  that  any  torpor,  or  even 
lentor  in  the  blood,  such  as  scarcely  expresses  itself 
sensibly  through  the  pulse,  renders  that  fluid  less  able 
to  resist  the  first  actions  of  disease.  As  to  the  second, 
a  more  complex  subject,  luckily  we  benefit  not  by  our 
.own  brief  experience  exclusively  ;  every  man  benefits 
practically  by  the  traditional  experience  of  ages,  which 
constitutes  the  culinary  experience  in  every  land  and 
every  household.  The  inheritance  of  knowledge, 
which  every  generation  receives,  as  to  the  salubrity  of 
this  or  that  article  of  diet,  operates  continually  in  pre- 
venting dishes  from  being  brought  to  table.  Each 
man's  separate  experience  does  something  to  arm  him 
against  the  temptation  when  it  is  offered  ;  and  again, 
the  traditional  experience  far  oftener  intercepts  the 
temptation.  As  to  the  third  head,  sleep,  this  of  all  is 
the  most  immediately  fitted  by  nature  to  the  relief  of 
the  brain  and  its  exquisite  machinery  of  nerves:  —  it 
is  the  function  of  health  most  attended  to  in  our  navy  ; 
and  of  all  it  is  the  one  most  painfully  ravaged  by  a 
London  life. 

Thus  it  would  appear,  that  the  three  great  laws  of 
health,  viz.,  motion,  rest,  and  temperance,  (or,  by  a 
more  adequate  expression,  adaptation  to  the  organ,) 
are,  in  a  certain  gross  way,  taught  to  every  man  by  his 
personal  experience.  The  difficulty  is  —  as  in  so  many 
other  cases  —  not  for  the  understanding,  but  for  the 
will  —  not  to  know,  but  to  execute. 

Now  here  steps   in  Casuistry  with  two  tremendous 


248  CASUISTRY. 

suggestions,  sufficient  to  alarm  any  thoughtful  man, 
and  rouse  him  more  effectually  to  the  performance  of 
his  duty. 

First,  that  under  the  same  law  (whatever  that  law 
may  be)  which  makes  suicide  a  crime,  must  the  neglect 
of  health  be  a  crime  ?  For  thus  stand  the  two  ac- 
counts : —  By  suicide  you  have  cut  off  a  portion  un- 
known  from  your  life  :  years  it  may  be,  but  possibly 
only  days.  By  neglect  of  health  you  have  cut  off  a 
portion  unknoitm  from  your  life  :  days  it  may  be,  but 
also  by  possibility  years.  So  the  practical  result  may 
be  the  same  in  either  case  ;  or,  possibly,  the  least  is 
suicide.  '  Yes,'  you  reply,  '  the  -practical  results  — but 
not  the  purpose  —  not  the  intention  —  ergo,  not  the 
crime.'  Certainly  not :  in  the  one  case  the  result 
arises  from  absolute  predetermination,  with  the  whole 
energies  of  the  will ;  in  the  other  it  arises  in  spite  of 
your  will,  (meaning  your  choice)  —  it  arises  out  of 
human  infirmity.  But  still  the  difference  is  as  between 
choosing  a  crime  for  its  own  sake,  and  falling  into  it 
from  strong  temptation. 

Secondly,  that  in  every  case  of  duty  unfulfilled,  or 
duty  imperfectly  fulfilled,  in  consequence  of  illness, 
languor,  decaying  spirits,  &c.,  there  is  a  high  proba- 
bility (under  the  age  of  sixty-five  almost  a  certainty) 
that  a  part  of  the  obstacle  is  due  to  self-neglect.  No 
man  that  lives  but  loses  some  of  his  time  from  ill 
health,  or  at  least  from  the  incipient  forms  of  ill  health 
—  bad  spirits,  or  indisposition  to  exertion.  Now,  taking 
men  even  as  they  are,  statistical  societies  have  ascer- 
tained that,  from  the  ages  of  twenty  to  sixty-five,  ill 
health,  such  as  to  interrupt  daily  labor,  averages  from 


CASUISTRY.  249 

seven  days  to  about  fourteen  per  annum.  In  the  best 
circumstances  of  climate,  occupation,  &c.,  one  fifty- 
second  part  of  the  time  perishes  to  the  species  —  in  the 
least  favorable,  two  such  parts.  Consequently,  in  the 
forty-five  years  from  twenty  to  sixty-five,  not  very  far 
from  a  year  perishes  on  an  average  to  every  man  —  to 
some  as  much  more.  A  considerable  part  even  of  this 
loss  is  due  to  neglect  or  mismanagement  of  health. 
But  this  estimate  records  only  the  loss  of  time  in  a  pe- 
cuniary sense  ;  which  loss,  being  powerfully  restrained 
by  self-interest,  will  be  the  least  possible  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. The  loss  of  energy,  as  applied  to  duties 
not  connected  with  any  self-interest,  will  be  far  more. 
In  so  far  as  that  loss  emanates  from  defect  of  spirits,  or 
other  modes  of  vital  torpor,  such  as  neglect  of  health 
has  either  caused  or  promoted,  and  care  might  have 
prevented,  in  so  far  the  omission  is  charged  to  our  own 
responsibility.  Many  men  fancy  that  the  slight  injuries 
done  by  each  single  act  of  intemperance,  are  like  the 
glomeration  of  moonbeams  upon  moonbeams — myriads 
will  not  amount  to  a  positive  value.  Perhaps  they  are 
wrong;  possibly  eveiy  act  —  nay,  every  separate  pulse 
or  throb  of  intemperate  sensation  —  is  numbered  in  our 
own  after  actions  ;  reproduces  itself  in  some  future 
perplexity  ;  comes  back  in  some  reversionary  shape 
that  injures  the  freedom  of  action  for  all  men,  and 
makes  good  men  afllicted.  At  all  events,  it  is  an  un- 
deniable fact,  that  many  a  case  of  difficulty,  which  in 
apology  for  ourselves  we  very  truly  plead  to  be  insur- 
mountable by  our  existing  energies,  has  borrowed  its 
sting  from  previous  acts  or  omissions  of  our  own  ;  it 
might  not  have   been  insurmountable,  had  we  better 


250  CASUISTRY. 

cherished  our  physical  resources.  For  instance,  of 
such  a  man  it  is  said  —  he  did  not  assist  in  repelling  an 
injury  from  his  friend  or  his  native  land.  '  True,'  says 
his  apologist,  '  but  you  would  not  require  him  to  do  so 
when  he  labors  under  paralysis  ?  '  '  No,  certainly  ;  but, 
perhaps,  he  might  not  have  labored  under  paralysis  had 
he  uniformly  taken  care  of  his  health.''^ 

Let  not  the  reader  suspect  us  of  the  Popish  doctrine, 
that  men  arc  to  enter  hereafter  into  a  separate  reckon- 
ing for  each  separate  adt,  or  to  stand  at  all  upon  their 
own  merits.  That  reckoning,  we  Protestants  believe, 
no  man  could  stand  ;  and  that  some  other  resource 
must  be  had  than  any  personal  merits  of  the  individual. 
But  still  we  should  recollect  that  this  doctrine,  though 
providing  a  refuge  for  past  offences,  provides  none  for 
such  offences  as  are  committed  deliberately,  with  a 
prospective  view  to  the  benefits  of  such  a  refuge. 
Offend  we  may,  and  we  must :  but  then  our  offences 
must  come  out  of  mere  infirmity  —  not  because  we 
calculate  upon  a  large  allowance  being  made  to  us,  and 
say  to  ourselves,  '  Let  us  take  out  our  allowance.^ 

Casuistrj',  therefore,  justly,  and  without  infringing 
any  truth  of  Christianity,  urges  the  care  of  health  as 
the  basis  of  all  moral  action,  because,  in  fact,  of  all 
perfectly  voluntary  action.  Every  impulse  of  bad 
health  jars  or  untunes  some  string  in  the  fine  harp  of 
human  volition  ;  and  because  a  man  cannot  be  a  moral 
being  but  in  the  proportion  of  his  free  action,  therefore 
it  is  clear  that  no  man  can  be  in  a  high  sense  moral, 
except  in  so  far  as  through  health  he  commands  his 
bodily  powers,  and  is  not  commanded  by  them. 


CASTTISTRY.  251 

Case  II. 

LAWS    OF   HOSPITALITY   IN    COLLISION   WITH   CIVIC   DUTIES. 

Suppose  the  case,  that  taking  shelter  from  a  shower 
of  rain  in  a  stranger's  house,  you  discover  proofs  of  a 
connection  with  smugglers.  Take  this  for  one  pole  of 
such  case,  the  trivial  extreme  ;  then  for  the  other  pole, 
the  greater  extreme,  suppose  the  case,  that,  being  hos- 
pitably entertained,  and  happening  to  pass  the  night  in 
a  stranger's  house,  you  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  detect 
unquestionable  proofs  of  some  dreadful  crime,  say 
murder,  perpetrated  in  past  times  by  one  of  the  family. 
The  principle  at  issue  is  the  same  in  both  cases  :  viz., 
the  command  resting  upon  the  conscience  to  forget 
private  consideration  and  personal  feelings  in  the  pres- 
ence of  any  solemn  duty  ;  yet  merely  the  difference  of 
degree,  and  not  any  at  all  in  the  kind  of  duty,  would 
lead  pretty  generally  to  a  separate  practical  decision 
for  the  several  cases.  In  the  last  of  the  two,  whatever 
might  be  the  pain  to  a  person's  feelings,  he  would  feel 
himself  to  have  no  discretion  or  choice  left.  Reveal 
he  must ;  not  only,  if  otherwise  revealed,  he  must  come 
forward  as  a  witness,  but,  if  not  revealed,  he  must  de- 
nounce—  he  must  lodge  an  information,  and  that  in- 
stantly, else  even  in  law,  without  question  of  morality, 
he  makes  himself  a  party  to  the  crime  — an  accomplice 
after  the  act.  That  single  consideration  would  with 
most  men  at  once  cut  short  all  deliberation.  And  yet 
even  in  such  a  situation,  there  is  a  possible  variety  of 
the  case  that  might  alter  its  complexion.  If  the  crime 
had  been  committed  many  years  before,  and  under 
circumstances  which  precluded  all  fear  that  the  same 


252  CASUISTRY. 

temptation  or  the  same  provocation  should  arise  again, 
most  reflecting  people  would  think  it  the  better  course 
to  leave  the  criminal  to  his  conscience.  Often  in  such 
denunciations  it  is  certain  that  human  impertinence,  and 
the  spirit  which  sustains  the  habit  of  gossip,  and  mere 
incontinence  of  secrets,  and  vulgar  craving  for  being 
the  author  of  a  sensation,  have  far  more  often  led  to 
the  publication  of  the  offence,  than  any  concern  for  the 
interests  of  morality. 

On  the  other  hand,  with  respect  to  the  slighter  ex- 
treme —  viz.  in  a  case  where  the  offence  is  entirely 
created  by  the  law,  with  no  natural  turpitude  about  it 
and  besides  (which  is  a  strong  argument  in  the  case) 
enjoying  no  special  facilities  of  escaping  justice  —  no 
man  in  the  circumstances  supposed  would  have  a  rea- 
son for  hesitating.  The  laws  of  hospitality  are  of 
everlasting  obligation ;  they  are  equally  binding  on  the 
host  and  on  the  guest.  Coming  under  a  man's  roof 
for  one  moment,  in  the  clear  character  of  guest,  cre- 
ates an  absolute  sanctity  in  the  consequent  relations 
which  connect  the  parties.  That  is  the  popular  feel- 
ing. The  king  in  the  old  ballads  is  always  repre- 
sented as  feeling  that  it  would  be  damnable  to  make  a 
legal  offence  out  of  his  own  venison  which  he  had 
eaten  as  a  guest.  There  is  a  cleaving  pollution,  like 
that  of  the  Syrian  leprosy,  in  the  act  of  abusing  your 
privileges  as  a  guest,  or  in  any  way  profiting  by  your 
opportunities  as  a  guest  to  the  injury  of  your  confiding 
host.  Henry  VII.  though  a  prince,  was  no  gentleman ; 
and  in  the  famous  case  of  his  dining  with  Lord  Oxford, 
and  saying  at  his  departure,  with  reference  to  an  in- 
fraction of  his  recent  statute,  '  My  Lord,  I  thank  you 


CASUISTRY.  253 

for  my  good  cheer,  but  my  attorney  must  speak  with 
you  ;'  Lord  Oxford  might  have  justly  retorted,  '  If  he 
does,  then  posterity  will  speak  pretty  plainly  with  your 
Majesty  ; '  for  it  was  in  the  character  of  Lord  Oxford's 
guest  that  he  had  learned  the  infraction  of  his  law. 
Meantime,  the  general  rule,  and  the  rationale  of  the 
rule,  in  such  cases,  appears  to  be  this :  Whenever  there 
is,  or  can  be  imagined,  a  sanctity  in  the  obligations  on 
one  side,  and  only  a  benefit  of  expediency  in  the  obli- 
gations upon  the  other,  the  latter  must  give  way.  For 
the  detection  of  smuggling,  (the  particular  offence  sup- 
posed in  the  case  stated,)  society  has  an  express  and 
separate  machinery  maintained.  If  their  activity 
droops,  that  is  the  business  of  government.  In  such  a 
case,  government  is  entitled  to  no  aid  from  private 
citizens  ;  on  the  express  understanding  that  no  aid 
must  be  expected,  has  so  expensive  an  establishment 
been  submitted  to.  Each  individual  refuses  to  partici- 
pate in  exposure  of  such  offences,  for  the  same  reason 
that  he  refuses  to  keep  the  street  clean  even  before  his 
own  door  —  he  has  already  paid  for  having  such  work 
discharged  by  proxy. , 

Case  III. 

GIVINQ   CHARACTERS   TO   SERVANTS   WHO   HAVE    MISCONDUCTED 
THEMSELVES. 

No  case  so  constantly  arises  to  perplex  the  con- 
science in  private  life  as  this  —  which,  in  principle, 
is  almost  beyond  solution.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the 
coarse  realities  of  law  step  in  to  cut  that  Gordian  knot 
which  no  man  can  untie  ;  for  it  is  an  actionable  offence 


254  CASUISTRY. 

to  give  a  character  wilfully  false.  That  little  fact  at 
once  exorcises  all  aerial  phantoms  of  the  conscience. 
True :  but  this  coarse  machinery  applies  only  to  those 
cases  in  which  the  servant  has  been  guilty  in  a  way 
amenable  to  law.  In  any  case  short  of  that,  no  plain- 
tiff would  choose  to  face  the  risks  of  an  action ;  nor 
could  he  sustain  it ;  the  defendant  would  always  have 
a  sufficient  resource  in  the  vagueness  and  large  lati- 
tude allowed  to  opinion  when  estimating  the  qualities 
of  a  servant.  Almost  universally,  therefore,  the  case 
comes  back  to  the  forum  of  conscience.  Now  in  that 
forum  how  stands  the  pleading .''  Too  certainly,  we 
will  suppose,  that  the  servant  has  not  satisfied  your 
reasonable  expectations.  This  truth  you  would  have  no 
difficulty  in  declaring;  here,  as  much  as  anywhere  else, 
you  would  feel  it  unworthy  of  your  own  integrity  to 
equivocate  —  you  open  your  writing-desk,  and  sit 
down  to  tell  the  mere  truth  in  as  few  words  as  possi- 
ble. But  then  steps  in  the  consideration,  that  to  do 
this  without  disguise  or  mitigation,  is  oftentimes  to  sign 
a  warrant  for  the  ruin  of  a  fellow-creature  —  and  that 
fellow-creature  possibly  penitent,  in  any  case  thrown 
upon  your  mercy.  Who  can  stand  this  ?  In  lower 
walks  of  life,  it  is  true  that  mistresses  often  take  ser- 
vants without  any  certificate  of  character;  but  in 
higher  grades  this  is  notoriously  uncommon,  and  in 
great  cities  dangerous.  Besides,  the  candidate  may 
happen  to  be  a  delicate  girl,  incapable  of  the  hard  la- 
bor incident  to  such  a  lower  establishment.  Here, 
then,  is  a  case  where  conscience  says  into  your  left 
ear  —  Fiat  juslitia,  mat  ccdum  —  '  Do  your  duty 
without  looking  to  C9nsequences.'     Meantime,  into  the 


CASUISTRY.  255 

right  car  conscience  says,  '  But  mark,  in  that  case 
possibly  you  consign  this  poor  girl  to  prostitution.' 
Lord  Nelson,  as  is  well  known,  was  once  placed  in  a 
dilemma  equally  trying  ; '^  on  one  side,  an  iron  tongue 
sang  out  from  the  commander-in-chief — retreat;  on 
the  other,  his  own  oracular  heart  sang  to  him  —  ad- 
vance. How  he  decided  is  well  known ;  and  the  words 
in  which  he  proclaimed  his  decision  ought  to  be  em- 
blazoned for  ever  as  the  noblest  of  all  recorded  repar- 
tees. Waiving  his  hand  towards  the  Admiral's  ship, 
he  said  to  his  own  officers,  who  reported  the  signal  of 
recall — 'You  may  see  it;  I  cannot;  you  know  I  am 
blind  on  that  side.'  Oh,  venerable  blindness!  immor- 
tal blindness  !  None  so  deaf  as  those  who  will  not 
hear  ;  none  so  gloriously  blind  as  those  who  will  not 
see  any  danger  or  difficulty  —  who  have  a  dark  eye 
on  that  side,  whilst  they  reserve  another  blazing  like  a 
meteor  for  honor  and  their  country's  interest.  Most  of 
us,  we  presume,  in  the  case  stated  about  the  servant, 
hear  but  the  whispering  voice  of  conscience  as  regards 
the  truth,  and  her  thundering  voice  as  regards  the 
poor  girl's  interest.  In  doing  this,  however,  we  (and 
doubtless  others)  usually  attempt  to  compromise  the 
opposite  suggestions  of  conscience  by  some  such  Jesu- 
itical device  as  this.  We  dwell  pointedly  upon  those 
good  qualities  which  the  servant  really  possesses,  and 
evade  speaking  of  any  others.  But  how,  if  minute, 
searching  and  circumstantial  inquiries  are  made  by 
way  of  letter  }  In  that  case,  we  aflect  to  have  noticed 
only  such  as  we  can  answer  with  success,  passing  the 
dangerous  ones  as  so  many  rocks,  sub  silcntio.  All 
this  is  not  quite  right,  you  think,  reader.     Why,  no  ; 


256  CASUISTRY. 

so  think  we  ;  but  what  alternative  is  allowed  ?  *  Say, 
ye  severest,  what  would  ye  have  done  ?'  In  very  truth, 
this  is  a  dilemma  for  which  Casuistry  is  not  a  match ; 
unless,  indeed,  Casuistry  as  armed  and  equipped  in 
the  school  of  Ignatius  Loyola.  But  that  is  with  us  re- 
puted a  piratical  Casuistry.  The  whole  estate  of  a 
servant  lies  in  his  capacity  of  serving ;  and  often  if 
you  tell  the  truth,  by  one  word  you  ruin  this  estate  for 
ever.  Meantime,  a  case  very  much  of  the  same 
quality,  and  of  even  greater  difiiculty,  is 

Case  IV. 

CRIMINAL    PROSECUTION    OF   FRAUDULENT   SERVANTS. 

Any  reader,  who  is  not  deeply  read  in  the  economy 
of  English  life,  will  have  a  most  inadequate  notion  of 
the  vast  extent  to  which  this  case  occurs.  We  are 
well  assured,  (for  our  information  comes  from  quarters 
judicially  conversant  with  the  question,)  that  in  no 
other  channel  of  human  life  does  there  flow  one-hun- 
dredth part  of  the  forbearance  and  the  lenity  which  are 
called  into  action  by  the  relation  between  injured 
masters,  and  their  servants.  We  are  informed  that, 
were  every  third  charge  pursued  effectually,  half  the 
courts  in  Europe  would  not  suffice  for  the  cases  of 
criminality  which  emerge  in  London  alone  under 
this  head.  All  England  would,  in  the  course  of  five 
revolving  years,  have  passed  under  the  torture  of 
subpoena,  as  witnesses  for  the  prosecution  or  the  de- 
fence. This  multiplication  of  cases  arises  from  the 
coincidence  of  hourly  opportunity  with  hourly  tempta- 
tion, both  carried  to  the  extreme  verge  of  possibility, 
and  generally  falling  in  with  youth  in  the  offenders. 


CASUISTRY.  257 

These  aggravations  of  the  danger  are  three  several 
palliations  of  the  crime,  and  they  have  weight  allowed 
to  them  by  the  indulgent  feelings  of  masters  in  a  cor- 
responding degree  ;  not  one  case  out  of  six  score  that 
are  discovered  (while,  perhaps,  another  six  score  go 
undiscovered)  being  ever  prosecuted  with  rigor  and 
effect. 

In  this  universal  laxity  of  temper  lies  an  injury  too 
serious  to  public  morals  ;  and  the  crime  reproduces 
itself  abundantly  under  an  indulgence  so  Christian  in 
its  motive,  but  unfortunately  operating  with  the  full 
effect  of  genial  culture.  Masters,  who  have  made 
themselves  notorious  by  indiscriminate  forgiveness, 
might  be  represented  symbolically  as  gardeners  water- 
ing and  tending  luxuriant  crops  of  crime  in  hot-beds 
or  forcing-houses.  In  London,  many  are  the  trades- 
men, who,  being  reflective  as  well  as  benevolent, 
perceive  that  something  is  amiss  in  the  whole  system. 
In  part  the  law  has  been  to  blame,  stimulating  false 
mercy  by  punishment  disproportioned  to  the  offence. 
But  many  a  judicious  master  has  seen  cause  to  suspect 
his  own  lenity  as  more  mischievously  operative  even 
than  the  law's  hardness,  and  as  an  effeminate  surren- 
der to  luxurious  sensibilities.  Those  have  not  been 
the  sevei'est  masters  whose  names  arc  attached  to  fatal 
prosecutions  :  on  the  contrary,  three  out  of  four  have 
"been  persons  who  looked  forward  to  general  conse- 
quences —  having,  therefore,  been  more  than  usually 
thoughtful,  were,  for  that  reason,  likely  to  be  more 
than  usually  humane.  They  did  not  suffer  the  less 
acutely,  because  their  feelings  ran  counter  to  the 
course  of  what  they  believed  to  be  their  duty.  Pros- 
17 


258  CASUISTET. 

ecutors  often  sleep  with  less  tranquillity  during  the 
progress  of  a  judicial  proceeding  than  the  objects  of 
the  prosecution.  An  English  judge  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, celebrated  for  his  uprightness,  used  to  balance 
against  that  pity  so  much  vaunted  for  the  criminal,  the 
duty  of  '  a  pity  to  the  country.'  But  private  prosecu- 
tors of  their  own  servants,  often  feel  both  modes  of 
pity  at  the  same  moment. 

For  this  difficulty  a  book  of  Casuistry  might  suggest 
a  variety  of  resources,  not  so  much  adapted  to  a  case 
of  that  nature  already  existing,  as  to  the  prevention  of 
future  cases.  Every  mode  of  trust  or  delegated  duty 
would  suggest  its  own  separate  improvements  ;  but  all 
improvements  must  fall  under  two  genuine  heads  — 
first,  the  diminution  of  temptation,  either  by  abridging 
the  amount  of  trust  reposed  ;  or,  where  that  is  difficult, 
by  shortening  its  duration,  and  muhiplying  the  counter- 
checks :  secondly,  by  the  moderation  of  the  punish- 
ment in  the  event  of  detection,  as  the  sole  means 
of  reconciling  the  public  conscience  to  the  law,  and 
diminishing  the  chances  of  impunity.  There  is  a 
memorable  proof  of  the  rash  extent  to  which  the 
London  tradesmen,  at  one  time,  carried  their  confi- 
dence in  servants.  So  many  clerks,  or  apprentices, 
were  allowed  to  hold  large  balances  of  money  in 
their  hands  through  the  intervals  of  their  periodical 
settlings,  that  during  the  Parliamentary  war  multi- 
tudes were  tem.pted,  by  that  single  cause,  into  abscond- 
ing. They  had  always  a  refuge  in  the  camps.  And 
the  loss  sustained  in  this  way  was  so  heavy,  when  all 
payments  were  made  in  gold,  that  to  this  one  evil  sud- 
denly assuming  a  shape  of  excess,  is  ascribed,  by  some 


CASUISTRY.  259 

writers,  the  first  establishment  of  goldsmiths  as  bank- 


ers 


Two  other  weighty  considerations  attach  to  this 
head  —  1,  The  known  fact  that  large  breaches  of 
trust,  and  embezzlements,  are  greatly  on  the  increase, 
and  have  been  since  the  memorable  case  of  Mr. 
Fauntleroy.  America  is,  and  will  be  for  ages,  a  city  of 
refuge  for  this  form  of  guilt.  2.  That  the  great  train- 
ing of  the  conscience  in  all  which  regards  pecuniary 
justice  and  fidelity  to  engagements,  lies  through  the 
discipline  and  tyrocinium  of  the  humbler  ministerial 
offices  —  those  of  clerks,  book-keepers,  apprentices. 
The  law  acts  through  these  offices,  for  the  unconfirmed 
conscience,  as  leading-strings  to  an  infant  in  its  ear- 
liest efforts  at  walking.  It  forces  to  go  right,  until  the 
choice  may  be  supposed  trained  and  fully  developed. 
That  is  the  great  function  of  the  law  ;  a  function 
which  it  will  perform  with  more  or  less  success,  as  it 
is  more  or  less  fitted  to  win  the  cordial  support  of  mas- 
ters. 

Case  V. 

VERACITY. 

Here  is  a  special  '  title,'  (to  speak  with  the  civil  law- 
yers,) under  that  general  claim  put  in  for  England 
with  respect  to  a  moral  pre-eminence  amongst  the 
nations.  Many  are  they  who,  in  regions  widely  apart, 
have  noticed  with  honor  the  English  superiority  in  the 
article  of  veneration  for  truth.  Not  many  years  ago, 
two  Englishmen,  on  their  road  overland  to  India,  fell 
in  with  a  royal  cortege^  and  soon  after  with  the  prime 
minister  and  the  crown  prince  of  Persia.     The  prince 


260  CASUISTRY. 

honored  them  with  an  interview ;  both  parties  being  on 
horseback,  and  the  conversation  therefore  reduced  to 
the  points  of  nearest  interest.  Amongst  these  was  the 
English  character.  Upon  this  the  prince's  remark 
was  —  that  what  had  most  impressed  him  with  respect 
for  England  and  her  institutions  was,  the  remarkable 
spirit  of  truth-speaking  which  distinguished  her  sons ; 
as  supposing  her  institutions  to  grow  out  of  her  sons, 
and  her  sons  out  of  her  institutions.  And  indeed  well 
he  might  have  this  feeling  by  comparison  with  his  own 
countrymen  :  Persians  have  no  principles  apparently 
on  this  point  —  all  is  impulse  and  accident  of  feeling. 
Thus  the  journal  of  the  two  Persian  princes  in  London, 
as  lately  reported  in  the  newspapers,  is  one  tissue  of 
falsehoods :  not,  most  undoubtedly,  from  any  purpose 
of  deceiving,  but  from  the  overmastering  habit  (cher- 
ished by  their  whole  training  and  experience)  of  re- 
peating everything  in  a  spirit  of  amplification,  with  a 
view  to  the  wonder  only  of  the  hearer.  The  Persians 
are  notoriously  the  Frenchmen  of  the  East ;  the  same 
gaiety,  the  same  levity,  the  same  want  of  depth  both 
as  to  feeling  and  principle.  The  Turks  are  much 
nearer  to  the  English :  the  same  gravity  of  tempera- 
ment, the  same  meditativeness,  the  same  sternness  of 
principle.  Of  all  European  nations,  the  French  is 
that  which  least  regards  truth.  The  whole  spirit  of 
their  private  memoirs  and  their  anecdotes  illustrates 
this.  To  point  an  anecdote  or  a  repartee,  there  is  no 
extravagance  of  falsehood  that  the  French  will  not 
endure.  What  nation  but  the  French  would  have  tol- 
erated that  monstrous  fiction  about  La  Fontaine,  by 
way   of  illustrating  his  supposed  absence  of  mind  — 


CASUISTRY.  261 

viz,  that,  on  meeting  his  own  son  in  a  friend's  house, 
he  expressed  his  admiration  of  the  young  man,  and 
begged  to  know  his  name.  Tlie  fact  probably  may 
have  been  that  La  Fontaine  was  not  liable  to  any 
absence  at  all  :  apparently  this  '  distraction  '  was  as- 
sumed as  a  means  of  making  a  poor  sort  of  sport  for 
his  friends.  Like  many  another  man  in  such  circum- 
stances, he  saw  and  entered  into  the  fun  which  his  own 
imaginary  forgatfulness  produced.  But  were  it  other- 
wise, who  can  believe  so  outrageous  a  self-forgctful- 
ness  as  that  which  would  darken  his  eyes  to  the  very 
pictures  of  his  own  hearth  ?  Were  such  a  thing  pos- 
sible, were  it  even  real,  it  would  still  be  liable  to  the 
just  objection  of  the  critics  —  that,  being  marvellous  in 
appearance,  even  as  a  fact  it  ought  not  to  be  brought 
forward  for  any  purpose  of  wit,  but  only  as  a  truth  of 
physiology,  or  as  a  fact  in  the  records  of  a  surgeon. 
The  '  incredulus  odi  '  is  too  strong  in  such  cases,  and 
it  adheres  to  three  out  of  every  four  French  anecdotes. 
The  French  taste  is,  indeed,  anything  but  good  in  all 
that  department  of  wit  and  humor.  And  the  ground 
lies  in  their  national  want  of  veracity.  To  return  to 
England  — and  hj^ving  cited  an  Oriental  witness  to  the 
English  character  on  this  point,  let  us  now  cite  a  most 
observing  one  in  the  West.  Kant,  in  Konigsberg,  was 
surrounded  by  Englishmen  and  by  foreigners  of  all 
nations  —  foreign  and  English  students,  foreign  and 
English  merchants  ;  and  he  pronounced  the  main  char- 
acteristic feature  of  the  English  as  a  nation  to  lie  in 
their  severe  reverence  for  truth.  This  from  him  was 
no  slight  praise  ;  for  such  was  the  stress  he  laid  upon 
veracity,   that  upon  this  one  quality  he   planted  the 


262  CASUISTRY. 

whole  edifice  of  moral  excellence.  General  integrity 
could  not  exist,  he  held,  without  veracity  as  its  basis  ; 
nor  that  basis  exist  without  superinducing  general  in- 
tegrity. 

This  opinion,  perhaps,  many  beside  Kant  will  see 
cause  to  approve.  For  ourselves  we  can  truly  say  — 
never  did  we  know  a  human  being,  boy  or  girl,  who 
began  life  as  an  habitual  undervaluer  of  truth,  that  did 
not  afterwards  exhibit  a  character  conformable  to  that 
beginning —  such  a  character  as,  however  superficially 
correct  under  the  steadying  hand  of  self-interest,  was 
not  in  a  lower  key  of  moral  feeling  as  well  as  of  prin- 
ciple. 

But  out  of  this  honorable  regard  to  veracity  in  Im- 
manuel  Kant,  branched  out  a  principle  in  Casuistry 
which  most  people  will  pronounce  monstrous.  It  has 
occasioned  much  disputing  backwards  and  forwards. 
But  as  a  practical  principle  of  conduct,  (for  which  Kant 
meant  it,)  inevitably  it  must  be  rejected — if  for  no 
other  reason  because  it  is  at  open  war  with  the  laws 
and  jurisprudence  of  all  Christian  Europe.  Kant's 
doctrine  was  this  ;  and  the  illustrative  case  in  which  it 
is  involved,  let  it  be  remembered,  is  his  own:  —  So 
sacred  a  thing,  said  he,  is  truth  —  that  if  a  murderer, 
pursuing  another  with  an  avowed  purpose  of  killing 
him,  were  to  ask  of  a  third  person  by  what  road  the 
fleeing  party  had  fled,  that  person  is  bound  to  give  him 
true  information.  And  you  are  at  liberty  to  suppose 
this  third  person  a  wife,  a  daughter,  or  under  any  con- 
ceivable obligations  of  love  and  duty  to  the  fugitive. 
Now  this  is  monstrous  :  and  Kant  himself,  with  all  his 
parental  fondness    for   the    doctrine,   would   certainly 


CASUISTRY.  263 

have  been  recalled  to  sounder  thoughts  by  these  two 
considerations  — 

1st.  That  by  all  the  codes  of  law  received  through- 
out Europe,  he  who  acted  upon  Kant's  principle  would 
be  held  a  particeps  criminis  —  an  accomplice  before 
the  fact. 

2d.  That,  in  reality,  a  just  principle  is  lurking  under 
Kant's  error ;  but  a  principle  translated  from  its  proper 
ground.  Not  truth,  individual  or  personal  —  not  truth 
of  mere  facts,  but  truth  doctrinal  —  the  truth  which 
teaches,  the  truth  which  changes  men  and  nations  — 
—  this  is  the  truth  concerned  in  Kant's  meaning,  had 
he  explained  his  own  meaning  to  himself  more  dis- 
tinctly. With  respect  to  that  truth,  wheresoever  it  lies, 
Kant's  doctrine  applies  —  that  all  men  have  a  right  to 
it;  that  perhaps  you  have  no  right  to  suppose  of  any 
race  or  nation  that  it  is  not  prepared  to  receive  it ;  and, 
at  any  rate,  that  no  circumstances  of  expedience  can 
justify  you  in  keeping  it  back. 

Case  VI. 

THE    CASE   OF   CHARLES   I. 

Many  cases  arise  from  the  life  and  political  difficul- 
ties of  Charles  I.  But  there  is  one  so  peculiarly  per- 
tinent to  an  essay  which  entertains  the  general  question 
of  Casuistry  —  its  legitimacy,  its  value  —  that  with 
this,  although  not  properly  a  domestic  case,  or  only 
such  in  a  mixed  sense,  we  shall  conclude. 

No  person  has  been  so  much  attacked  for  his  scru- 
ples of  conscience  as  this  prince  ;  and  what  seems  odd 
enough,  no  person  has  been  so  much  attacked  for 
reso.ting  to  books  of  Casuistry,  and  for  encouraging 


•264  CASUISTRY. 

literary  men  to  write  books  of  Casuistry.  Under  his 
suggestion  and  sanction,  Saunderson  wrote  his  book  on 
the  obligation  of  an  oath,  (for  which  there  was  surely 
reason  enough  in  days  when  the  democratic  tribunals 
were  forcing  men  to  swear  to  an  et  ccetera  ;)  and,  by 
an  impulse  originally  derived  from  him,  Jeremy  Tay- 
lor wrote  afterwards  his  Ductor  Dubitantmrn,  Bishop 
Barlow  wrote  his  Cases  of  Conscience,  &c.  &c. 

For  this  dedication  of  his  studies,  Charles  has  been 
plentifully  blamed  in  after  times.  He  was  seeking  eva- 
sions for  plain  duties,  say  his  enemies.  He  was  arming 
himself  for  intrigue  in  the  school  of  Machiavel.  But  now 
turn  to  his  history,  and  ask  in  what  way  any  man  could 
have  extricated  himself  from  that  labyrinth  which  in- 
vested his  path  hut  by  Casuistry.  Cases  the  most  diffi- 
cult are  ofTered  for  his  decision  :  peace  for  a  distracted 
nation  in  1647,  on  terms  which  seemed  fatal  to  the  mon- 
archy ;  peace  for  the  same  nation  under  the  prospect 
of  war  rising  up  again  during  the  Isle  of  Wight  treaty 
in  1648,  but  also  under  the  certainty  of  destroying  the 
Church  of  England.  On  the  one  side,  by  refusing,  he 
seemed  to  disown  his  duties  as  the  father  of  his  people. 
On  the  other  side,  by  yielding,  he  seemed  to  forget  his 
coronation  oath,  and  the  ultimate  interests  of  his  people 
— to  merge  the  future  and  the  reversionary  in  the  present 
and  the  fugitive.  It  was  not  within  the  possibilities  that 
he  could  so  act  as  not  to  offend  one  half  of  the  nation. 
His  dire  calamity  it  was,  that  he  must  be  hated,  act 
how  he  would,  and  must  be  condemned  by  posterity. 
Did  his  enemies  allow  for  the  misery  of  this  internal 
conflict  ?  Milton,  who  never  appears  to  more  disad- 
vantage than  when  he  comes  forward  against  his  sove- 


jf 


CASUISTRY.  265 

reign,  is  indignant  tliat  Charles  should  liave  a  con- 
science, or  plead  a  conscience,  in  a  public  matter. 
Henderson,  the  celebrated  Scotch  theologian,  came 
post  from  Edinburgh  to  London  (whence  he  went  to 
Newcastle)  expressly  to  combat  the  king's  scruples. 
And  he  also  (in  his  private  letters)  seems  equally  en- 
raged as  Milton,  that  Charles  should  pretend  to  any 
private  conscience  in  a  state  question. 

Now  let  us  ask  —  what  was  it  that  originally  drove 
Charles  to  books  of  Casuistry  ?  It  was  the  deep  shock 
which  he  received,  both  in  his  affections  and  his  con- 
science, from  the  death  of  Lord  Strafford.  Every 
body  had  then  told  him,  even  those  who  felt  how  much 
the  law  must  be  outraged  to  obtain  a  conviction  of 
Lord  Strafford,  how  many  principles  of  justice  must  be 
shaken,  and  how  sadly  the  royal  word  must  suffer  in  its 
sanctity,  —  yet  all  had  told  him  that  it  was  expedient  to 
sacrifice  that  nobleman.  One  man  ought  not  to  stand 
between  the  king  and  his  alienated  people.  It  was  good 
for  the  common  welfare  that  Lord  Strafford  should  die. 
Charles  was  unconvinced.  He  was  sure  of  the  injus- 
tice ;  and  perhaps  he  doubted  even  of  the  expedience. 
But  his  very  virtues  were  armed  against  his  peace.  In 
all  parts  of  his  life  self-distrust  and  diffidence  had 
marked  his  character.  What  was  he,  a  single  person, 
to  resist  so  many  wise  counsellors,  and  what  in  a  rep- 
resentative sense  was  the  nation  ranged  on  the  other 
side  ?  He  yielded  :  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
he  never  had  a  happy  day  afterwards.  The  stirring 
period  of  his  life  succeeded — the  period  of  war,  camps, 
treaties.     Much  time  was  not  allowed  him  for  medita- 


266  CASUISTRY. 

tion.  But  there  is  abundant  proof  that  such  time  as  he 
had,  always  pointed  his  thoughts  backwards  to  the 
afflicting  case  of  Lord  StrafTord.  This  he  often  spoke 
of  as  the  great  blot  —  the  ineffaceable  transgression  of 
his  life.  For  this  he  mourned  in  penitential  words  yet 
on  record.  To  this  he  traced  back  the  calamity  of  his 
latter  life.  Lord  Strafford's  memorable  words  —  'Put 
not  your  trust  in  princes,  nor  in  the  sons  of  princes,'  — 
rang  for  ever  in  his  ear.  Lord  Strafford's  blood  lay 
like  a  curec  upon  his  throne. 

Now,  by  what  a  pointed  answei*,  drawn  from  this 
one  case,  might  Charles  have  replied  to  the  enemies 
we  have  noticed  —  to  those,  like  so  many  historians 
since  his  day,  who  taxed  him  with  studying  Casuistry 
for  the  purposes  of  intrigue  —  to  those,  like  Milton  and 
Henderson,  who  taxed  him  with  exercising  his  private 
conscience  on  public  questions. 

'  I  hiid  studied  no  books  of  Casuistry,'  he  might  have 
replied,  '  when  I  made  the  sole  capital  blunder  in  a 
case  of  conscience,  which  the  review  of  my  life  can 
slipw. 

'  I  did  not  insist  on  my  private  conscience  ;  woe  is  me 
that  I  did  not :  I  yielded  to  what  was  called  the  public 
conscience  in  that  one  case  which  has  proved  the  afflic- 
tion of  my  life,  and  which,  perhaps,  it  was  that  wrecked 
the  national  peace.' 

A  more  plenary  answer  there  cannot  be  to  those 
who  suppose  that  Casuistry  is  evaded  by  evading  books 
of  Casuistry.  That  dread  forum  of  conscience  will  for 
ever  exist  as  a  tribunal  of  difficulty.  The  discussion 
must  proceed  on  some  principle  or  other,  good  or  bad  ; 


CASUISTRY.  267 

and  the  only  way  for  obtaining  light  is  by  clearing  up 
the  grounds  of  action,  and  applying  the  principles  of 
moral  judgment  to  such  facts  or  circumstances  as 
most  frequently  arise  to  perplex  the  understanding,  or 
the  affections,  or  the  conscience. 


4 


NOTES. 


Note  1.    Page  206, 

The  ludicrous  blunder  of  Reid  (as  first  published  by  Lord 
Kames  in  his  Sketches),  and  of  countless  others,  through  the 
last  seventy  or  eighty  years,  in  their  critiques  on  the  logic  of 
Aristotle,  has  been  to  imagine  that  such  illustrations  of  syllo- 
gism as  these  vrere  meant  for  specimens  of  what  syllogism  could 
perform.  What  an  elaborate  machinery,  it  was  said,  for  bring- 
ing out  the  merest  self-evident  truisms  !  But  just  as  reasonably 
it  might  have  been  objected,  when  a  mathematician  illustrated 
the  process  of  addition  by  saying  3  +  4=7,  Behold  what  pom- 
pous nothings  !  These  Aristotelian  illustrations  were  purposely 
drawn  from  cases  not  open  to  dispute,  and  simply  as  exemplifi- 
cations of  the  meaning  :  they  were  intentionally  self-evident. 

Note  2.     Page  208. 

'To  absolute  infinity.'  —  We  have  noticed  our  own  vast  pile  of 
law,  and  that  of  the  French.  But  neither  of  us  has  yet  reached 
the  alarming  amount  of  the  Koman  law,  under  which  the  very 
powers  of  social  movement  threatened  to  break  down.  Courts 
could  not  decide,  advocates  could  not  counsel,  so  interminable 
was  becoming  the  task  of  investigation.  This  led  to  the  great 
digest  of  Justinian.  But,  had  Roman  society  advanced  in 
wealth,  extent,  and  social  development,  instead  of  retrograding, 
the  same  result  would  have  returned  in  a  worse  shape.  The 
same  result  now  menaces  England,  and  will  soon  menace  her 
much  more. 


270  CASUISTRY. 


Note  3.    Page  210. 

'Of  some  military  interest.^  —  It  is  singular  that  some  pecu- 
liar interest  has  always  settled  upon  Jaifa,  no  matter  who  was 
the  military  leader  of  the  time,  or  what  the  object  of  the  strug- 
gle. From  Julius  Caesar,  Joppa  enjoyed  some  special  privileges 
and  immunities  —  about  a  century  after,  in  the  latter  years  of 
Nero,  a  most  tragical  catastrophe  happened  at  Joppa  to  the 
Syrian  pirates,  by  which  the  Yery  same  number  perished  as  in 
the  Napoleon  massacre,  viz.  something  about  4000.  In  the  200 
years  of  the  Crusades,  Joppa  revived  again  into  military  ver- 
dure. The  fact  is,  that  the  shore  of  Syria  is  pre-eminently 
deficient  in  natural  harbors,  or  facilities  for  harbors  —  those 
which  exist  have  been  formed  by  art  and  severe  contest  with  the 
opposition  of  nature.  Hence  their  extreme  paucity,  and  hence 
their  disproportionate  importance  in  every  possible  war. 

Note  4.    Page  228. 

This  word,  however,  which  occurs  nowhere  that  we  remember, 
except  in  Lampridius,  one  of  the  Augustan  historians,  is  here 
applied  to  Heliogabalus ;  and  means,  not  the  act  of  suicide,  but 
a  suicidal  person.  And  possibly  Donne,  who  was  a  good  scholar, 
may  so  mean  it  to  be  understood  in  his  title-page.  Heliogabalus, 
says  Lampridius,  had  been  told  by  the  Syrian  priests  that  he 
should  be  Biathanatos,  i.  e.  should  commit  suicide.  He  pro- 
vided, therefore,  ropes  of  purple  and  of  gold  intertwisted,  that  he 
might  hang  himself  imperatorially.  He  provided  golden  swords, 
that  he  might  run  himself  through'as  became  Cassar.  He  had 
poisons  inclosed  in  jewels,  that  he  might  drink  his  farewell  heel- 
taps, if  drink  he  must,  in  a  princely  style.  Other  modes  of 
august  death  he  had  prepared.  Unfortunately  all  were  unavail- 
ing, for  he  was  murdered  and  dragged  through  the  common 
sewers  by  ropes,  without  either  purple  or  gold  in  their  base 
composition.  The  poor  fellow  has  been  sadly  abused  in  his- 
tory ;  but,  after  all,  he  was  a  mere  boy,  and  as  mad  as  a  March 
hare. 


.  NOTES.  271 

Note  5.     Page  246. 

'One  man  of  each  thousand .-  '  in  several  nations  that  has  been 
found  to  be  the  average  proportion  of  the  insane.  But  this  cal- 
culation has  never  been  made  to  include  all  the  slighter  cases. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  at  some  periods  the  whole  human  race 
may  have  been  partially  insane. 

Note  6.     Page  250. 

With  respect  to  the  management  of  health,  although  it  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  like  the  '  primal  charities,'  in  the  language 
of  Wordsworth,  in  proportion  to  its  importance  it  shines  alike 
for  all,  and  is  diffused  universally  —  yet  not  the  less,  in  every 
age,  some  very  obstinate  prejudices  have  prevailed  to  darken  the 
ti'uth.  Thus  Dryden  authorizes  the  conceit,  that  medicine  can 
never  be  useful  or  requisite,  because  — 

'  God  never  made  his  work  for  man  to  mend.' 

To  mend  !  No,  glorious  John,  neither  physician  nor  patient  has 
any  such  presumptuous  fancy ;  we  take  medicine  to  mend  the 
injuries  produced  by  our  own  folly.  What  the  medicine  mends 
is  not  God's  work,  but  our  own.  The  medicine  is  a  plus  cer- 
tainly; but  it  is  a  plus  applied  to  a  minus  of  our  own  introduc- 
ing. Even  in  these  days  of  practical  knowledge,  errors  prevail 
on  the  subject  of  health  which  are  neither  trivial  nor  of  narrow 
operation.  Universally,  the  true  theory  of  digestion,  as  partial- 
ly unfolded  in  Dr.  Wilson  Philip's  experiments  on  rabbits,  is  so 
far  mistaken,  and  even  inverted  —  that  Lord  Byron,  when  seek- 
ing a  diet  of  easy  digestion,  instead  of  resorting  to  animal  food 
broiled  and  underdone,  which  all  medical  men  know  to  be  the 
most  digestible  food,  took  to  a  vegetable  diet,  which  requires  a 
stomach  of  extra  power.  The  same  error  is  seen  in  the  common 
notion  about  the  breakfast  of  ladies  in  Elizabeth's  daj-s,  as  if  fit 
only  for  ploughmen;  whereas  it  is  our  breakfasts  of  slops  which 
require  the  powerful  organs  of  digestion.  The  same  error, 
again,  is  current  in  the  notion  that  a  weak  watery  diet  is  fit  for 
a  weak  person.  Such  a  person  peculiarly  requires  solid  food. 
Tt  is  also  a  common  mistake  to  suppose  that,  because  no  absolute 


272  CASUISTRY. 

illness  is  caused  by  daily  errors  of  diet,  these  errors  are  practi- 
cally cancelled.  Covvper  the  poet  delivers  the  very  just  opinion 
—  that  all  disorders  of  a  function  (as,  suppose,  the  seci-etion  of 
bile,)  sooner  or  later,  if  not  corrected,  cease  to  bo  functional 
disorders,  aud  become  organic. 

Note  7.    Page  255. 

'Once  placed  in  a  dilemma.'  —  On  the  first  expedition 
against  Copenhagen,  (in  1801.)  He  was  unfortunately  second 
in  command  j  his  principal,  a  brave  man  in  person,  wanted 
moral  courage  —  he  could  not  face  responsibility  in  a  trying 
shape.  And  had  he  not  been  blessed  with  a  disobedient  second  in 
command,  he  must  have  returned  home  re  infectd. 

NoTK  8.    Page  259. 

'First  establishment  of  goldsmiths  as  bankers.'  —  Goldsmiths 
certainly  acted  in  that  capacity  from  an  earlier  period.  But 
from  this  era,  until  the  formation  of  the  Bank  of  England  in 
160G,  they  entered  more  fully  upon  the  functions  of  bankers,  is- 
suing notes  which  passed  current  in  London. 


GREECE   UNDER   THE   ROMANS.* 

[1844.] 

What  is  called  Philosophical  History  we  believe  to 
be  yet  in  its  infancy.  It  is  the  profound  remark  of 
Mr.  Finlay  —  profound  as  we  ourselves  understand  it, 
i.  e.,  in  relation  to  this  philosophical  treatment,  '  That 
history  will  ever  remain  inexhaustible.'  How  inex- 
haustible ?  Are  the  facts  of  history  inexhaustible  ? 
In  regard  to  the  ancient  division  of  history  with  which 
he  is  there  dealing,  this  would  be  in  no  sense  true ; 
and  in  any  case  it  would  be  a  lifeless  truth.  So  en- 
tirely have  the  mere  facts  of  Pagan  history  been  dis- 
interred, ransacked,  sifted,  that  except  by  means  of 
some  chance  medal  that  may  be  unearthed  in  the 
illiterate  East  (as  of  late  towards  Bokhara),  or  by 
means  of  some  mysterious  inscription,  such  as  those 
which  still  mock  the  learned  traveller  in  Persia,  north- 
wards near  Hamadan  (Ecbatana),  and  southwards  at 
Persepolis,  or  those  which  distract  him  amongst  the 
shadowy  ruins  of  Yucatan  (Uxmal,  suppose,  and  Pa- 
lenque),  —  once  for  all,  barring  these  pure  godsends, 
it  is  hardly  '  in  the  dice'  that  any  downright  novelty  of 
fact  should  remain  in  reversion  for  this  nineteenth  cen- 

*  Greece  under  the  Romans.     By  Geokqe  Finlat. 
18 


274  GKEECE   UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

tury.  The  merest  possibility  exists,  that  in  Armenia, 
or  in  a  Graeco-Russian  monastery  on  Mount  Athos,  or 
in  Pompeii,  &c.,  some  authors  hitherto  avtydoret  may 
yet  be  concealed ;  and  by  a  channel  in  that  degree 
improbable,  it  is  possible  that  certain  new  facts  of  his- 
tory may  still  reach  us.  But  else,  and  failing  these 
cryptical  or  subterraneous  currents  of  communication, 
for  us  the  record  is  closed.  History  in  that  sense  has 
come  to  an  end,  and  sealed  up  as  by  the  angel  in  the 
Apocalypse.  What  then  ?  The  facts  so  understood 
are  but  the  dry  bones  of  the  mighty  past.  And  the 
question  arises  here  also,  not  less  than  in  that  sublimest 
of  prophetic  visions,  '  Can  these  dry  bones  live .? ' 
Not  only  can  they  live,  but  by  an  infinite  variety  of 
life.  The  same  historic  facts,  viewed  in  different 
lights,  or  brought  into  connection  with  other  facts, 
according  to  endless  diversities  of  permutation  and 
combination,  furnish  grounds  for  such  eternal  succes- 
sions of  new  speculations  as  make  the  facts  themselves 
virtually  new.  The  same  Hebrew  words  are  read  by 
different  sets  of  vowel  points,  and  the  same  hierogly- 
phics are  decipered  by  key's  everlastingly  varied. 

To  us  we  repeat  that  oftentimes  it  seems  as  though 
the  science  of  history  were  yet  scarcely  founded. 
There  will  be  such  a  science,  if  at  present  there  is 
not;  and  in  one  feature  of  its  capacities  it  will  resem- 
ble chemistry.  What  is  so  familiar  to  the  perceptions 
of  man  as  the  common  chemical  agents  of  water,  air, 
and  the  soil  on  which  we  tread .?  Yet  each  one  of 
these  elements  is  a  mystery  to  this  day;  handled,  used, 
tried,  searched  experimentally,  in  ten  thousand  ways 
—  it   is  still   unknown ;    fathomed   by  recent  science 


Jl 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  275 

down  to  a  certain  depth,  it  is  still  probably  by  its  des- 
tiny unfathomable.  Even  to  the  end  of  days,  it  is 
pretty  certain  that  the  minutest  particle  of  earth  — 
that  a  dew-drop  scarcely  distinguishable  as  a  separate 
object  —  that  the  slenderest  filament  of  a  plant  will 
include  within  itself  secrets  inaccessible  to  man.  And 
yet,  compared  with  the  mystery  of  man  himself,  these 
physical  worlds  of  mystery  are  but  as  a  radix  of  infin- 
ity. Chemistry  is  in  this  view  mysterious  and  spino- 
sistically  sublime  —  that  it  is  the  science  of  the  latent 
in  all  things,  of  all  things  as  lurking  in  all.  Within 
the  lifeless  flint,  within  the  silent  pyrites,  slumbers  an 
agony  of  potential  combustion.  Iron  is  imprisoned  in 
blood.  With  cold  water  (as  every  child  is  now-a-days 
aware)  you  may  lash  a  fluid  into  angry  ebullitions  of 
heat ;  with  hot  water,  as  with  the  rod  of  Amram's 
son,  you  may  freeze  a  fluid  down  to  the  temperature 
of  the  Sarsar  wind,  provided  only  that  you  regulate 
the  pressure  of  the  air.  The  sultry  and  dissolving 
fluid  shall  bake  into  a  solid,  the  petrific  fluid  shall 
melt  into  a  liquid.  Heat  shall  freeze,  frost  shall  thaw ; 
and  wherefore  ?  Simply  because  old  things  are  brought 
together  in  new  modes  of  combination.  And  in  end- 
less instances  beside  we  see  the  same  Panlike  latency 
of  forms  and  powers,  which  gives  to  the  external  world 
a  capacity  of  self-transformation,  and  of  pohjmorpho- 
sis  absolutely  inexhaustible. 

But  the  same  capacity  belongs  to  the  facts  of  history. 
And  we  do  not  mean  merely  that,  from  subjective 
differences  in  the  minds  reviewing  them,  such  facts 
assume  endless  varieties  of  interpretation  and  estimate, 
but  that  objectively,  from  lights  still  increasing  in  the 


276  GREECE    UNDER   THE    ROMANS. 

science  of  government  and  of  social  philosophy,  all 
the  primary  facts  of  history  become  liable  continually 
to  new  theories,  to  new  combinations,  and  to  new 
valuations  of  their  moral  relations.  We  have  seen 
some  kinds  of  marble,  where  the  veinings  happened 
to  be  unusually  multiplied,  in  which  human  faces, 
figures,  processions,  or  fragments  of  natural  scenery 
seemed  absolutely  illimitable,  vmder  the  endless  varia- 
tions or  inversions  of  the  order,  according  to  which 
they  might  be  combined  and  grouped.  Something 
analogous  takes  effect  in  reviewing  the  remote  parts  of 
history.  Rome,  for  instance,  has  been  the  object  of 
historic  pens  for  twenty  centuries  (dating  from  Poly- 
bius) ;  and  yet  hardly  so  much  as  twenty  years  have 
elapsed  since  Niebuhr  opened  upon  us  almost  a  new 
revelation,  by  re-combining  the  same  eternal  facts, 
according  to  a  different  set  of  principles.  The  same 
thing  may  be  said,  though  not  with  the  same  degree 
of  emphasis,  upon,  the  Grecian  researches  of  the  late 
Ottfried  Mueller.  Egyptian  history  again,  even  at  this 
moment,  is  seen  stealing  upon  us  through  the  dusky 
twilight  in  its  first  distinct  lineaments.  Before  Young, 
ChampolUon,  and  the  others  who  have  followed  on 
their  traces  in  this  field  of  history,  all  was  outer  dark- 
ness ;  and  whatsoever  we  do  know  or  shall  know  of 
Egyptian  Thebes  will  now  be  recovered  as  if  from  the 
unswathing  of  a  mummy.  Not  until  a  flight  of  three 
thousand  years  has  left  Thebes  the  Hekatompylos  a 
dusky  speck  in  the  far  distance,  have  we  even  begun 
to  read  her  annals,  or  to  understand  her  revolutions. 

Another  instance  we  have  now  before  us  of  this  new 
historic  faculty  for  resuscitating  the   buried,  and  for 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  277 

calling  back  the  breath  to  the  frozen  features  of  death, 
in  Mr,  Finlay's  work  upon  the  Greeks  as  related  to 
the  Roman  empire.  He  presents  us  with  old  facts, 
but  under  the  purpose  of  clothing  them  with  a  new 
life.  He  rehearses  ancient  stories,  not  with  the  humble 
ambition  of  better  adorning  them,  of  more  perspicu- 
ously narrating,  or  ev.en  of  more  forcibly  pointing 
their  moral,  but  of  extracting  from  them  some  new 
meaning,  and  thus  forcing  them  to  arrange  themselves, 
under  some  latent  connection,  with  other  phenomena 
now  first  detected,  as  illustrations  of  some  great  prin- 
ciple or  agency  now  first  revealing  its  importance. 
Mr.  Finlay's  style  of  intellect  is  appropriate  to  such  a 
task  ;  for  it  is  subtle  and  Machiavelian.  But  there  is 
this  difficulty  in  doing  justice  to  the  novelty,  and  at 
times  we  may  say  with  truth  to  the  profundity  of  his 
views,  that  they  are  by  necessity  thrown  out  in  con- 
tinued successions  of  details,  are  insulated,  and,  in  one 
word,  sporadic.  This  follows  from  the  very  nature  of 
his  work ;  for  it  is  a  perpetual  commentary  on  the 
incidents  of  Grecian  history,  from  the  era  of  the 
Roman  conquest  to  the  commencement  of  what  Mr. 
Finlay,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  calls  the  Byzantine  empire. 
These  incidents  have  nowhere  been  systematically  or 
continuously  recorded  ;  they  come  forward  by  casual 
flashes  in  the  annals,  perhaps,  of  some  church  histo- 
rian, as  they  happen  to  connect  themselves  with  his 
momentary  theme ;  or  they  betray  themselves  in  the 
embarrassments  of  the  central  government,  whether  at 
Rome  or  at  Constantinople,  when  arguing  at  one  time 
a  pestilence,  at  another  an  insurrection,  or  an  inroad 
of  barbarians.     It  is  not  the  fault  of  Mr.  Finlay,  but 


278  GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

his  great  disadvantage,  that  the  affairs  of  Greece  have 
been  thus  discontinuously  exhibited,  and  that  its  inter- 
nal changes  of  condition  have  been  never  treated 
except  obliquely,  and  by  men  aliud  agentihus.  The 
Grecian  race  had  a  primary  importance  on  our  planet ; 
but  the  Grecian  name,  represented  by  Greece  consid- 
ered as  a  territory,  or  as  the  original  seat  of  the  Hel- 
lenic people,  ceased  to  have  much  importance,  in  the 
eyes  of  historians,  from  the  time  when  it  became  a 
conquered  province ;  and  it  declined  into  absolute 
insignificance  after  the  conquest  of  so  many  other 
provinces  had  degraded  Hellas  into  an  arithmetical 
unit,  standing  amongst  a  total  amount  of  figures,  so 
vast  and  so  much  more  dazzling  to  the  ordinary  mind. 
Hence  it  was  that  in  ancient  times  no  complete  history 
of  Greece,  through  all  her  phases  and  stages,  was 
ever  attempted.  The  greatness  of  her  later  revolu- 
tions, simply  as  changes,  would  have  attracted  the 
historian ;  but,  as  changes  associated  with  calamity 
and  loss  of  power,  they  repelled  his  curiosity,  and 
alienated  his  interest.  It  is  the  very  necessity,  there- 
fore, of  Mr.  Finlay's  position,  when  coming  into  such 
an  inheritance,  that  he  must  splinter  his  philosophy 
into  separate  individual  notices  ;  for  the  records  of  his- 
tory furnish  no  grounds  for  more.  Spartam,  quam  nac- 
tus  est,  ornavit.  But  this  does  not  remedy  the  difiiculty 
for  ourselves,  in  attempting  to  give  a  representative 
view  of  his  philosophy.  General  abstractions  he  had 
no  opportuuity  for  presenting;  consequently  we, have 
no  opportunity  for  valuing;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
single  cases  selected  from  a  succession  of  hundreds 
would   not  justify  any  representative  criticism,  more 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  279 

than  the  single  brick,  in  the  anecdote  of  Hierocles, 
would  serve  representatively  to  describe  or  to  appraise 
the  house. 

Under  this  difficulty  as  to  the  possible  for  ourselves, 
and  the  just  for  Mr.  Finlay,  we  shall  adopt  the  fol- 
lowing course.  So  far  as  the  Greek  people  collected 
themselves  in  any  splendid  manner  with  the  Roman 
empire,  they  did  so  whh  the  eastern  horn  of  that 
empire,  and  in  point  of  time  from  the  foundation 
of  Constantinople  as  an  eastern  Rome,  in  the  fourth 
•century,  to  a  period  not  fully  agreed  on;  but  for  the 
moment  we  will  say  with  Mr.  Finlay,  up  to  the  early 
part  of  the  eighth  century.  A  reason  given  by  Mr, 
Finlay  for  this  latter  date  is  —  that  about  that  time  the 
Grecian  blood,  so  widely  diffijsed  in  Asia,  and  even  in 
Africa,  became  finally  detached  by  the  progress  of 
Mahometanism  and  Mahometan  systems  of  power 
from  all  further  concurrence  or  coalition  with  the  views 
of  the  Byzantine  Cresar.  Constantinople  was  from  that 
date  thrown  back  more  upon  its  own  peculiar  heritage 
and  jurisdiction,  of  which  the  main  resources  for  war 
and  peace  lay  in  Europe  and  (speaking  by  the  nar- 
rowest terms)  in  Thrace.  Henceforth,  therefore,  for 
the  city  and  throne  of  Constantino,  resuming  its  old 
Grecian  name  of  Byzantium,  there  succeeded  a  theatre 
less  diffusive,  a  population  more  concentrated,  a  char- 
acter of  action  more  determinate  and  jealous,  a  style 
of  courtly  ceremonial  more  elaborate  as  well  as  more 
haughtily  repulsive,  and  universally  a  system  of  inter- 
ests, as  much  more  definite  and  selfish,  as  might 
naturally  be  looked  for  in  a  nation  now  everywhere 
surrounded  by  new  thrones  gloomy  with  malice,  and 


280  GREECE   TINDER   THE    ROMANS. 

swelling  with  the  consciousness  of  youthful  power. 
This  new  and  final  state  of  the  eastern  Rome  Mr. 
Finlay  denominates  the  Byzantine  empire.  Possibly 
this  use  of  the  term  may  be-  capable  of  justification : 
but  more  questions  would  arise  in  the  discussion  than 
Mr.  Finlay  has  thought  it  of  importance  to  notice. 
And  for  the  present  we  shall  take  the  word  Byzantine 
in  its  most  ordinary  acceptation,  as  denoting  the  local 
empire  founded  by  Constantihe  in  Byzantium  early  in 
the  fourth  century,  under  the  idea  of  a  translation 
from  the  old  western  Rome,  and  overthrown  by  the 
Ottoman  Turks  in  the  year  1453.  In  the  fortunes  and 
main  stages  of  this  empire,  what  ai'e  the  chief  arresting 
phenomena,  aspects,  or  relations,  to  the  greatest  of 
modern  interests  ?     We  select  by  preference  these  : 

I.  First,  this  was  the  earliest  among  the  kingdoms 
of  our  planet  lohich  connected  itself  with  Christianity. 
In  Armenia,  there  had  been  a  previous  state  recog- 
nition of  Christianity.  But  that  was  neither  splendid 
nor  distinct.  Whereas  the  Byzantine  Rome  built 
avowedly  upon  Christianity  as  its  own  basis,  and  con- 
secrated its  own  nativity  by  the  sublime  act  of  founding 
the  first  provision  ever  attempted  for  the  poor,  consid- 
ered simply  as  poor  [i.  e.  as  objects  of  pity,  nc^t  as 
instruments  of  ambition). 

II.  Secondly,  as  the  great  cEgis  of  western  Christen- 
dom, nay,  the  barrier  which  made  it  possible  that  any 
Christendom  should  ever  exist,  this  Byzantine  empire 
is  entitled  to  a  very  different  station  in  the  enlightened 
gratitude  of  us  Western  Europeans  from  any  which  it 
has  yet  held.  We  do  not  scruple  to  say — that,  by 
comparison  with  the  services  of  the  Byzantine  people 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  281 

to  Europe,  no  nation  on  record  has  ever  stood  in  the 
same  relation  to  any  other  single  nation,  much  less  to 
a  whole  family  of  nations,  whether  as  regards  the 
opportunity  and  means  ,of  conferring  benefits,  or  as 
regards  the  astonishing  perseverance  in  supporting  the 
succession  of  these  benefits,  or  as  regards  the  ultimate 
event  of  these  benefits.  A  great  wrong  has  been  done 
for  ages ;  for  we  have  all  been  accustomed  to  speak  of 
the  Byzantine  empire  with  scorn,*  as  chiefly  known  by 
its  effeminacy ;  and  the  greater  is  the  call  for  a  fervent 
palinode. 

III.  Thirdly.  In  a  reflex  way,  as  the  one  great 
danger  which  overshadowed  Europe  for  generations, 
and  against  which  the  Byzantine  empire  proved  the 
capital  bulwark,  Mahometanism  may  rank  as  one  of 
the  Byzantine  aspects  or  counterforces.  And  if  there 
is  any  popular  error  applying  to  the  history  of  that 
great  convulsion,  as  a  political  effort  for  revolutionizing 
the  world,  some  notice  of  it  will  find  a  natural  place 
in  connection  with  these  present  trains  of  speculation. 

Let  us,  therefore,  have  permission  to  throw  together 
a  few  remarks  on  these  three  subjects  —  1st,  on  the 

*  *  With  scorn. ^  —  This  has  arisen  from  two  causes  :  one  is  the 
habit  of  regarding  the  whole  Roman  empire  as  in  its  *  decline  ' 
from  so  e:irly  a  period  as  that  of  Commodus ;  agreeably  to  which 
conceit,  it  would  naturally  follow  that,  during  its  latter  stages, 
the  Eastern  empire  must  have  been  absolutely  in  its  dotage.  If 
already  declining  in  the  second  century,  then,  from  the  tenth  to 
the  fifteenth,  it  must  have  been  paralytic  and  bed-ridden  The 
other  cause  may  be  found  in  the  accidental  but  reasonable  hos- 
tility of  the  Byzantine  court  to  the  first  Crusaders,  as  also  in  the 
disadvantageous  comparison  with  respect  to  manly  virtues  be- 
tween the  simplicity  of  these  western  children,  and  the  refined 
dissimulation  of  the  Byzantines. 


282  GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

remarkable  distinction  by  which  the  eldest  of  Christian 
rulers  proclaimed  and  inaugurated  the  Christian  basis 
of  his  empire  ;  2dly,  on  the  true  but  forgotten  relation 
of  this  great  empire  to  our  modern  Christendom,  under 
which  idea  we  comprehend  Europe  and  the  whole 
continent  of  America ;  3dly,  on  the  false  pretensions 
of  Mahometanism,  whether  advanced  by  itself  or  by 
inconsiderate  Christian  speculators  on  its  behalf.  We 
shall  thus  obtain  this  advantage,  that  some  sort  of  unity 
will  be  given  to  our  own  glances  at  Mr.  Finlay's 
theme ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  by  gathering  under 
these  general  heads  any  dispersed  comments  of  Mr. 
Finlay,  whether  for  confirmation  of  our  own  views,  or 
for  any  purpose  of  objection  to  his,  we  shall  give  to 
those  comments  also  that  kind  of  unity,  by  means  of 
a  reference  to  a  common  purpose,  which  we  could  not 
have  given  them  by  citing  each  independently  for 
itself. 

I.  First,  then,  as  to  that  memorable  act  by  which 
Constantinople  {i.  e.  the  Eastern  empire)  connected 
herself  for  ever  with  Christianity  ;  viz.  the  recognition 
of  pauperism  as  an  element  in  the  state  entitled  to 
the  maternal  guardianship  of  the  state.  In  this  new 
principle,  introduced  by  Christianity,  we  behold  a  far- 
seeing  or  proleptic  wisdom,  making  provision  for  evils 
before  they  had  arisen  ;  for  it  is  certain  that  great 
expansions  of  pauperism  did  not  exist  in  the  ancient 
world.  A  pauper  population  is  a  disease  peculiar  to 
the  modern  or  Christian  world.  Various  causes  latent 
in  the  social  systems  of  the  ancients  prevented  such 
developments  of  surplus  people.  But  does  not  this 
argue  a  superiority  in  the  social  arrangements  of  these 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  283 

ancients  ?  Not  at  all ;  they  were  atrociously  worse. 
They  evaded  this  one  morbid  affection  by  means  of 
others  far  more  injurious  to  the  moral  advance  of  man. 
The  case  was  then  everywhere  as  at  this  day  it  is  in 
Persia.  A  Persian  ambassador  to  London  or  Paris 
might  boast  that,  in  his  native  Iran,  no  such  spectacles 
existed  of  hunger-bitten  myriads  as  may  be  seen  every- 
where during  seasons  of  distress  in  the  crowded  cities 
of  Christian  Europe.  '  No,'  would  be  the  answer, '  most 
certainly  not ;  but  why  ?  The  reason  is,  that  your 
accursed  form  of  society  and  government  intercepts 
such  surplus  people,  does  not  suffer  them  to  be  born. 
What  is  the  result  ?  You  ought,  in  Persia,  to  have 
three  hundred  millions  of  people  ;  your  vast  territory 
is  easily  capacious  of  that  number.  You  have  —  how 
many  have  you  ?  Something  less  than  eight  millions.' 
Think  of  this,  startled  reader.  But,  if  that  be  a  good 
state  of  things,  then  any  barbarous  soldier  who  makes 
a  wilderness,  is  entitled  to  call  himself  a  great  philoso- 
pher and  public  benefactor.  This  is  to  cure  the 
headache  by  amputating  the  head.  Now,  the  same 
principle  of  limitation  to  population  a  parte  arite, 
though  not  in  the  same  savagi3  excess  as  in  Mahometan 
Persia,  operated  upon  Greece  and  Rome.  The  whole 
Pagan  world  escaped  the  evils  of  redundant  population 
by  vicious  repressions  of  it  beforehand.  But  under 
Christianity  a  new  state  of  things  was  destined  to  take 
effect.  Many  protections  and  excitements  to  popula- 
tion were  laid  in  the  framework  of  this  new  religion, 
which,  by  its  new  code  of  rules  and  impulses,  in  so 
many  waj's  extended  the  free-agency  of  human  beings. 
Manufacturing  industry  was  destined  first  to  arise  on 


284  GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

any  great  scale  under  Christianity.  Except  in  Tyre 
and  Alexandria  (see  the  Emperor  Hadrian's  account 
of  this  last),  there  was  no  town  or  district  in  the  an- 
cient world  where  the  populace  could  be  said  properly 
to  work.  The  rural  laborers  worked  a  little  —  not 
much; — and  sailors  worked  a  little;  —  nobody  else 
worked  at  all.  Even  slaves  had  little  more  work  dis- 
tributed amongst  each  ten  than  now  settles  upon  one. 
And  in  many, other  ways,  by  protecting  the  principle 
of  life,  as  a  mysterious  sanctity,  Christianity  has  fa- 
vored the  development  of  an  excessive  population. 
There  it  is  that  Christianity,  being  answerable  for  the 
mischief,  is  answerable  for  its  redress.  Therefore  it 
is  that,  breeding  the  disease,  Christianity  breeds  the 
cure.  Extending  the  vast  lines  of  poverty,  Christianity 
it  was  that  first  laid  down  the  principle  of  a  relief  for 
poverty.  Constantino,  the  first  Christian  potentate,  laid 
the  first  stone  of  the  mighty  overshadowing  institution 
since  reared  in  Christian  lands  to  poverty,  disease, 
orphanage,  and  mutilation.  Christian  instincts,  moving 
and  speaking  through  that  Caesar,  first  carried  out  that 
great  idea  of  Christianity.  Six  years  was  Christianity 
in  building  Constantinople,  and  in  the  seventh  she 
rested  from  her  labors,  saying,  '  Henceforward  let 
the  poor  man  have  a  haven  of  rest  for  ever ;  a  rest 
from  his  work  for  one  day  in  seven  ;  a  rest  from  his 
anxieties  by  a  legal  and  fixed  relief.'  Being  legal,  it 
could  not  be  open  to  disturbances  of  caprice  in  the 
f^iver ;  being  fixed,  it  was  not  open  to  disturbances  of 
miscalculation  in  the  receiver.  Now,  first,  when  first 
Christianity  was  installed  as  a  public  organ  of  govern- 
ment (and  first  owned  a  distinct  political  responsibility). 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  285 

did  it  become  the  duty  of  a  religion  which  assumed,  as 
it  were,  the  official  tutelage  of  poverty,  to  proclaim 
and  consecrate  that  function  by  some  great  memo- 
rial precedent.  And,  accordingly,  in  testimony  of  that 
obligation,  the  first  Christian  Csesar,  on  behalf  of 
Christianity,  founded  the  first  system  of  relief  for  pau- 
perism. It  is  true,  that  largesses  from  the  public 
treasury,  gratuitous  coin,  or  corn  sold  at  diminished 
rates,  not  to  mention  the  sportiihs  or  stated  doles  of 
private  Roman  nobles,  had  been  distributed  amongst 
the  indigent  citizens  of  Western  Rome  for  centuries 
before  Constantino ;  but  all  these  had  been  the  selfish 
bounties  of  factious  ambition  or  intrigue. 

To  Christianity  was  reserved  the  inaugural  act  of 
public  charity  in  the  spirit  of  charity.  We  must  re- 
member that  no  charitable  or  beneficent  institutions  of 
any  kind,  grounded  on  disinterested  kindness,  existed 
amongst  the  Pagan  Romans,  and  still  less  amongst  the 
Pagan  Greeks.  Mr.  Coleridge,  in  one  of  his  lay  ser- 
mons, advanced  the  novel  doctrine  —  that  in  the  Scrip- 
ture is  contained  all  genuine  and  profound  statesman- 
ship. Of  course  he  must  be  understood  to  mean  —  in 
its  capital  principles;  for, as  to  subordinate  and  execu- 
tive rules  for  applying  such  principles,  these,  doubtless, 
are  in  part  suggested  by  the  local  circumstances  in 
each  separate  case.  Now,  amongst  the  political  theo- 
ries of  the  Bible  is  this  —  that  pauperism  is  not  an 
accident  in  the  constitution  of  states,  but  an  indefeasible 
necessity;  or,  in  the  scriptural  words,  that  'the  poor 
shall  never  cease  out  of  the  land.'  This  theory  or 
great  canon  of  social  philosophy,  during  many  centu- 
ries, drew  no  especial  attention  from  philosophers.     It 


286  GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

passed  for  a  truism,  bearing  no  particular  emphasis 
or  meaning  beyond  some  general  purpose  of  sanction 
to  the  impulses  of  charity.  But  there  is  good  reason 
to  believe,  that  it  slumbered,  and"  was  meant  to  slum- 
ber, until  Christianity  arising  and  moving  forwards 
should  call  it  into  a  new  life,  as  a  principle  suited  to  a 
new  order  of  things.  Accordingly,  we  have  seen  of 
late  that  this  scriptural  dictum  —  'The  poor  shall  never 
cease  out  of  the  land'  —  has  terminated  its  career  as 
a  truism  (that  is,  as  a  truth,  either  obvious  on  one 
hand,  or  inert  on  the  other),  and  has  wakened  into  a 
polemic  or  controversial  life.  People  arose  who  took 
upon  them  utterly  to  deny  this  scriptural  doctrine. 
Peremptorily  they  challenged  the  assertion  that  pover- 
ty must  always  exist.  The  Bible  said  that  it  was  an 
affection  of  human  society  which  could  not  be  ex- 
terminated ;  the  economist  of  1800  said  that  it  was  a 
foul  disease,  which  must  and  should  be  exterminated. 
The  scriptural  philosophy  said,  that  pauperism  was 
inalienable  from  man's  social  condition  in  the  same 
way  that  decay  was  inalienable  from  his  flesh.  'I 
shall    soon    see    that,''   said    the    economist    of    1800, 

'  for   as    sure    as    my    name    is    M ,   I    will    have 

this  poverty  put  down  by  law  within  one  generation,  if 
there's  a  law  to  be  had  in  the  courts  of  Westminster.' 
The  Scriptures  have  left  word  —  that,  if  any  man 
should  come  to  the  national  banquet  declaring  himself 
unable  to  pay  his  contribution,  that  man  should  be  ac- 
counted the  guest  of  Christianity,  and  should  be  privi- 
leged to  sit  at  the  table  in  thankful  remembrance  of 

what  Christianity  had  done  for  man.     But  Mr.  M 

left  word  with  all  the  servants,  that,  if  any  man  should 


GREECE   UNDER   THE    ROMANS.  287 

present  himself  under  those  circumstances,  he  was  to 
be  told,  '  the  table  is  full'  —  (his  words,  not  ours) ;  '  go 

away,  good  man.'     Go  away !  Mr.  M >     Where 

was  he  to  go  to  ?     Whither  ?     In  what  direction  ?  — 
'  Why,  if  you  come  to  that,''  said  the  man  of  1800,  'to 
any  ditch  that  he  prefers  :  surely  there's  good  choice 
of  ditches  for  the  most  fastidious  taste.'     During  twen- 
ty years,  viz.  from  1800  to  1820,  this  new  philosophy, 
which  substituted  a  ditch  for  a  dinner,  and  a  paving- 
stone  for  a  loaf,  prevailed  and  prospered.     At  one  time 
it  seemed  likely  enough  to  prove  a  snare  to  our  own 
aristocracy  —  the  noblest  of  all  ages.     But  that  peril 
was  averted,  and  the  further  history  of  the  case  was 
this :     By   the   year    1820,    much    discussion   having 
passed  to  and  fro,  serious  doubts  had  arisen  in  many 
quarters ;  scepticism  had  begun  to  arm  itself  against 
the   sceptic ;  the    economist   of   1800  was  no  longer 
quite  sure  of  his  ground.     He  was  now  suspected  of 
being  fallible  ;  and  what  seemed  of  worse  augury,  he 
was  beginning  himself  to  suspect  as  much.     To  one 
capital  blunder  he  was  obliged  publicly  to  plead  guilty. 
What  it  was,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  mention  im- 
mediately.    Meantime  it  was  justly  thought  that,  in  a 
dispute  loaded  with   such  prodigious  practical  conse- 
quences, good  sense  and  prudence  demanded  a  more 
extended  inquiry  than  had  yet  been  instituted.   Whether 
poverty  would  ever  cease   from  the   land,   might  be 
doubted  by  those  who  balanced  their  faith  in  Scripture 
against  their  faith  in  the  man  of  1800.     But  this  at 
least  could  not  be  doubted  —  that  as  yet  poverty  had 
not  ceased,  nor  indeed  had  made  any  sensible  prepar- 
ations for  ceasing  from  any  land  in  Europe.     It  was  a 


288         GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

clear  case,  therefore,  that,  howsoever  Europe  might 
please  to  dream  upoo  the  matter  when  pauperism 
should  have  reached  that  glorious  euthanasy  predicted 
by  the  alchemist  of  old  and  the  economist  of  1800,  for 
the  present  she  must  deal  actively  with  her  own  pau- 
perism on  some  avowed  plan  and  principle,  good  or 
evil  —  gentle  or  harsh.  Accordingly,  in  the  train  of 
years  between  1820  and  1830,  inquiries  were  made 
of  every  separate  state  in  Europe,  what  were  those 
plans  and  principles.  For  it  was  justly  said — 'As 
one  step  towards  judging  rightly  of  our  own  system, 
now  that  it  has  been  so  clamorously  challenged  for  a 
bad  system,  let  us  learn  what  it  is  that  other  nations 
think  upon  the  subject,  but  above  all  what  it  is  that  they 
do.''  The  answers  to  our  many  inquiries  varied  con- 
siderably; and  some  amongst  the  most  enlightened 
nations  .appear  to  have  adopted  the  good  old  plan  of 
laissez  faire,  giving  nothing  from  any  public  fund  to 
the  pauper,  but  authorizing  him  to  levy  contribution?^ 
on  that  gracious  allegoric  lady.  Private  Charity,  where- 
ever  he  could  meet  her  taking  the  air  with  her  babes. 
This  reference  appeared  to  be  the  main  one  in  reply 
to  any  application  of  the  pauper ;  and  for  all  the  rest 
they  referred  him  generally  to  the  '  ditch,'  or  to  his 
own  uYilimited  choice  of  ditches,  according  to  the  ap- 
proved method  of  public  benevolence  published  in  4to 
and  in  8vo  by  the  man  of  1800,  But  there  were  other 
and  humbler  states  in  Europe,  whose  very  pettiness 
has  brought  more  fully  within  their  vision  the  whole 
machinery  and  watchwork  of  pauperism,  as  it  acted 
and  reacted  on  the  industrious  poverty  of  the  land,  and 
on  other  interests,  by  means  of  the  system  adopted  in 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  289 

relieving  it.  From  these  states  came  many  interesting 
reports,  all  tending  to  some  good  purpose.  But  at  last, 
and  before  the  year  1830,  amongst  other  results  of 
more  or  less  value,  three  capital  points  were  established, 
not  more  decisive  for  the  justification  of  the  English 
system  of  administering  national  relief  to  paupers,  and 
of  all  systems  that  reverenced  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture, than  they  were  for  the  overthrow  of  IMr.  M , 

the  man  of  1800.  These  three  points  are  worthy  of 
being  used  as  buoys  in  mapping  out  the  true  channels, 
or  indicating  the  breakers  on  this  difficult  line  of  navi- 
gation ;  and  we  n9w  rehearse  them.  They  may  seem 
plain  almost  to  obviousness ;  but  it  is  enough  that  they 
involve  all  the  disputed  questions  of  the  case. 

First.  That,  in  spite  of  the  assurances  from  econo- 
mists, no  progress  whatever  had  been  made  by  Eng- 
land or  by  any  state  which  lent  any  sanction  to  the 
hope  of  ever  eradicating  poverty  from  society. 

Secondly.  That,  in  absolute  contradiction  of  the  whole 

hypothesis  relied  on  by  M and  his  brethren,  in  its 

most  fundamental  doctrine,  a  legal  provision  for  pover- 
ty did  not  act  as  a  bounty  on  marriage.  The  experi- 
ence of  England,  where  the  trial  had  been  made  on 
the  largest  scale,  was  decisive  on  this  point;  and  the 
opposite  experience  of  Ireland,  under  the  opposite 
circumstances,  was  equally  decisive.     And  this  result 

had  made  itself  so  clear  by  1820,  that  even  M (as 

we  have  already  noticed  by  anticipation)  was  compelled 
to  publish  a  recantation  as  to  this  particular  error, 
which  in  effect  was  a  recantation  of  his  entire  theory. 

Thirdly.  That,  according  to  the  concurring  experi- 
ence of  all  the  most  enlightened  states  of  Christendom, 
19 


290  GREECE'  UNDER   THE   ROMANS. 

the  public  suffered  least  (not  merely  in  molestation  but 
in  money),  pauperism  benefited  most,  and  the  growth 
of  pauperism  was  retarded  most,  precisely  as  the 
provision  for  the  poor  had  been  legalized  as  to  its 
obligation,  and  fixed  as  to  its  amount.  Left  to  indi- 
vidual discretion,  the  burden  was  found  to  press  most 
unequally  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  evil  itself  of 
pauperism,  whilst  much  less  effectually  relieved,  never- 
theless through  the  irregular  action  of  this  relief  was 
much  more  powerfully  stimulated. 

Such  is  the  abstract  of  our  latest  public  warfare  on 
this  great  question  through  a  period  of  nearly  fifty 
years.  And  the  issue  is  this  —  starting  from  the  con- 
temptuous defiance  of  the  scriptural  doctrine  upon  the 
necessity  of  making  provision  for  poverty  as  an  indis- 
pensable element  in  civil  communities,  the  economy  of 
the  age  has  lowered  its  tone  by  graduated  descents,  in 
each  one  successively  of  the  four  last  decennia.  The 
philosophy  of  the  day  as  to  this  point  at  least  is  at 
length  in  coincidence  with  Scripture.  And  thus  the 
very  extensive  researches  of  this  nineteenth  century, 
as  to  pauperism,  have  re-acted  with  the  effect  of  a  full 
justification  upon  Constantino's  attempt  to  connect  the 
foundation  of  his  empire  with  that  new  theory  of  Chris- 
tianity upon  the  imperishableness  of  poverty,  and  upon 
the  duties  corresponding  to  it. 

Meantime,  Mr.  Finlay  denies  that  Christianity  had 
been  raised  by  Constantino  into  the  religion  of  the 
state ;  and  others  have  denied  that,  in  the  extensive 
money  privileges  conceded  to  Constantinople,  he  con- 
templated any  but  political  principles.  As  to  the  first 
point,  we  apprehend  that  Constantino  will  be  found  not 


i 

! 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  291 

SO  much  to  have  shrunk  back  from  fear  of  installing 
Christianity  in  the  seat  of  supremacy,  as  to  have  di- 
verged in  policy  from  our  modern  methods  of  such 
an  installation.  Our  belief  is,  that  according  to  his 
notion  of  a  state  religion,  he  supposed  himself  to  have 
conferred  that  distinction  upon  Christianity.  With 
respect  to  the  endowments  and  privileges  of  Constan- 
tinople, they  were  various  ;  some  lay  in  positive  dona- 
tions, others  in  immunities  and  exemptions;  some 
again  were  designed  to  attract  strangers,  others  to 
attract  nobles  from  old  Rome.  But,  with  fuller  op- 
portunities for  pursuing  that  discussion,  we  think  it 
would  be  easy  to  show,  that  in  more  than  one  of  his 
institutions  and  his  decrees  he  had  contemplated  the 
special  advantage  of  the  poor  as  such ;  and  that,  next 
after  the  august  distinction  of  having  founded  the  first 
Christian  throne,  he  had  meant  to  challenge  and  fix 
the  gaze  of  future  ages  upon  this  glorious  pretension 
—  that  he  first  had  executed  the  scriptural  injunction 
to  make  a  provision  for  the  poor,  as  an  order  of  society 
that  by  laws  immutable  should  '  never  cease  out  of  the 
land.' 

II.  Let  us  advert  to  the  value  and  functions  of 
Constantinople  as  the  tutelary  genius  of  western  or 
dawning  Christianity. 

The  history  of  Constantinople,  or  more  generally  of 
the  Eastern  Roman  empire,  wears  a  peculiar  interest 
to  the  children  of  Christendom  ;  and  for  two  separate 
reasons  — first,  as  being  the  narrow  isthmus  or  bridge 
which  connects  the  two  continents  of  ancient  and  mod- 
ern history,  and  that  is  a  philosophic  interest ;  but 
secondly^  which  in  the  very  highest  degree  is  a  prac^ 


292  GEEECE    UNDER   THE    KOMANS. 

tical  interest,  as  the  record  of  our  earthly  salvation 
from  Mahometanism.  On  two  horns  was  Europe  as- 
saulted by  the  Moslems ;  first,  last,  and  through  the 
largest  tract  of  time,  on  the  horn  of  Constantinople  ; 
there  the  contest  raged  for  more  than  eight  hundred 
years,  and  by  the  time  that  the  mighty  bulwark  fell 
(1453),  Vienna  and  other  cities  upon  or  near  the  Dan- 
ube had  found  leisure  for  growing  up  ;  so  that,  if  one 
range  of  Alps  had  slowly  been  surmounted,  another 
had  now  slowly  reared  and  embattled  itself  against  the 
westward  progress  of  the  Crescent.  On  the  western 
horn,  in  France,  but  hy  Germans,  once  for  all  Charles 
Martel  had  arrested  the  progress  of  the  fanatical  Mos- 
lem almost  in  a  single  battle  ;  certainly  a  single  gene- 
ration saw  the  whole  danger  dispersed,  inasmuch  as 
within  that  space  the  Saracens  were  effectually  forced 
back  into  their  original  Spanish  lair.  This  demon- 
strates pretty  forcibly  the  difference  of  the  Mahometan 
resources  as  applied  to  the  western  and  the  eastern 
struggle.  To  throw  the  whole  weight  of  that  differ- 
ence, a  difference  in  the  result  as  between  eight  cen- 
turies and  thirty  years,  upon  the  mere  difference  of 
energy  in  German  and  Byzantine  forces,  as  though  the 
first  did,  by  a  rapturous  fervor,  in  a  few  revolutions  of 
summer  what  the  other  had  protracted  through  nearly 
a  millennium,  is  a  representation  which  defeats  itself 
by  its  own  extravagance.  To  prove  too  much  is  more 
dangerous  than  to  prove  too  little.  The  fact  is,  that 
vast  armies  and  mighty  nations  were  continually  dispos- 
able for  the  war  upon  the  city  of  Constantine  ;  nations 
had  time  to  arise  in  juvenile  vigor,  to  grow  old  and 
superannuated,  to  melt  away,  and  totally  to  disappear, 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  293 

in  that  long  struggle  on  the  Hellespont  and  Propontis. 
It  was  a  struggle  which  might  often  intermit  and  slum- 
ber ;  armistices  there  might  be,  truces,  or  unproclaimed 
suspensions  of  war  out  of  mutual  exhaustion,  but 
peace  there  could  not  be,  because  any  resting  from  the 
duty  of  hatred  towards  those  who  reciprocally  seemed 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  their  creed  in  a  dishonoring 
of  God,  was  impossible  to  aspiring  human  nature. 
Malice  and  mutual  hatred,  we  repeat,  became  a  duty 
in  those  circumstances.  Why  had  they  legun  to  fight.? 
Personal  feuds  there  had  been  none  between  the  par- 
ties. For  the  early  caliphs  did  not  conquer  Syria  and 
other  vast  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire,  because 
they  had  a  quarrel  with  the  Ccesars  who  represented 
Christendom  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  they  had  a  quarrel 
with  the  Caesars  because  they  had  conquered  Syria,  or, 
at  the  most,  the  conquest  and  the  feud  (if  not  always 
lying  in  that  exact  succession  as  cause  and  effect)  were 
joint  effects  from  a  common  cause,  which  cause  was 
imperishable  as  death,  or  the  ocean,  and  as  deep  as  are 
the  fountains  of  animal  life.  Could  the  ocean  be 
altered  by  a  sea-fight  ?  Or  the  atmosphere  be  tainted 
for  ever  by  an  earthquake  .''  As  little  could  any  single 
reign  or  its  events  affect  the  feud  of  the  Moslem  and 
the  Christian  ;  a  feud  which  could  not  cease  unless  God 
could  change,  or  unless  man  (becoming  careless  of 
spiritual  things)  should  sink  to  the  level  of  a  brute. 

These  are  considerations  of  great  importance  in 
weighing  the  value  of  the  Eastern  Empire.  If  the 
cause  and  interest  of  Islamism,  as  against  Christianity, 
were  undying  —  then  we  may  be  assured  that  the 
Moorish  infidels  of  Spain  did  not  reiterate  their  trans- 


294  GREECE  UNDER   THE    ROMANS. 

Pyrenean  expeditions  after  one  generation  —  simply 
because  they  could  not.  But  we  know  that  on  the 
south-eastern  horn  of  Europe  they  could,  upon  the 
plain  argument  that  for  many  centuries  they  did. 
Over  and  above  this,  we  are  of  opinion  that  the  Sara- 
cens were  unequal  to  the  sort  of  hardships  bred  by 
cold  climates;  and  there  lay  another  repulsion  for  Sar- 
acens from  France,  &c.,  and  not  merely  the  Carlovin- 
gian  sword.  We  children  of  Christendom  show  our 
innate  superiority  to  the  children  of  the  Orient  upon 
this  scale  or  tariff  of  acclimatizing  powers.  We  travel 
as  wheat  travels  through  all  reasonable  ranges  of  tem- 
perature ;  they,  like  rice,  can  migrate  only  to  warm 
latitudes.  They  cannot  support  our  cold,  but  we  can 
support  the  countervailing  hardships  of  their  heat. 
This  cause  alone  would  have  weatherbound  the  Mus- 
sulmans for  ever  within  the  Pyrenean  cloisters.  Mus- 
sulmans in  cold  latitudes  look  as  blue  and  as  absurd  as 
sailors  on  horseback.  Apart  from  which  cause,  we 
see  that  the  fine  old  Visigothic  races  in  Spain  found 
them  full  employment  up  to  the  reign  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  which  reign  first  created  a  kingdom  of 
Spain ;  in  that  reign  the  whole  fabric  of  their  power 
thawed  away,  and  was  confounded  with  forgotten 
things.  Columbbs,  according  to  a  local  tradition,  was 
personally  present  at  some  of  the  latter  campaigns  in 
Grenada  :  he  saw  the  last  of  them.  So  that  the  dis- 
covery of  America  may  be  used  as  a  convertible  date 
with  that  of  extinction  for  the  Saracen  power  in  west- 
ern Europe.  True  that  the  overthrow  of  Constanti- 
nople had  forerun  this  event  by  nearly  half  a  century. 
But  then  we  insist  upon  the  different  proportions  of  the 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  295 

struggle.  Whilst  in  Spain  a  province  had  fought 
against  a  province,  all  Asia  militant  had  fought  against 
the  eastern  Roman  empire.  Amongst  the  many  races 
whom  dimly  we  decry  in  those  shadowy  hosts,  tilting 
for  ages  in  the  vast  plains  of  Angora,  are  seen  latterly 
pressing  on  to  the  van,  two  mighty  powers,  the  chil- 
dren of  Persia  and  the  Ottoman  family  of  the  Turks. 
Upon  these  nations,  both  now  rapidly  decaying,  the 
faith  of  Mahomet  has  ever  leaned  as  upon  her  eldest 
sons  ;  and  these  powers  the  Byzantine  Caesars  had  to 
face  in  every  phsfsis  of  their  energy,  as  it  revolved 
from  perfect  barbarism,  through  semi-barbarism,  to 
that  crude  form  of  civilization  which  Mahometans  can 
support.  And  through  all  these  transmigrations  of 
their  power  we  must  remember  that  they  were  under  a 
martial  training  and  discipline,  never  suffered  to  be- 
come effemipate.  One  set  of  warriors  after  another 
did,  it  is  true,  become  effeminate  in  Persia  :  but  upon 
that  advantage  opening,  always  another  set  stepped  in 
from  Torkistan  or  from  the  Imaus.  The  nation,  the 
individuals  melted  away;  the  Moslem  armies  were 
immortal. 

Here,  therefore,  it  is,  and  standing  at  this  point  of 
our  review,  that  we  complain  of  Mr.  Finlay's  too  facile 
compliance  with  historians  far  beneath  himself.  He 
has  a  fine  understanding:  oftentimes  his  commentaries 
on  the  past  are  ebullient  with  subtlety;  and  his  fault 
strikes  us  as  lying  even  in  the  excess  of  his  sagacity 
applying  itself  too  often  to  a  basis  of  facts,  quite  insuf- 
ficient for  supporting  the  superincumbent  weight  of  his 
speculations.  But  in  this  instance  he  surrenders  him- 
self too  readily  to  the  ordinary  current  of  history.  How 


296  GREECE    UNUER    THE    ROMANS. 

would  he  like  it,  if  he  happened  to  be  a  Turk  himself, 
finding  his  nation  thus  implicitly  undervalued  ?  For 
clearly,  in  undervaluing  the  Byzantine  resistance,  he 
does  undervalue  the  Mahometan  assault.  Advantages 
of  local  situation  cannot  eternally  make  good  the  defi- 
ciencies of  man.  If  the  Byzantines  (being  as  weak 
as  historians  would  represent  them)  yet  for  ages  re- 
sisted the  whole  impetus  of  Mahometan  Asia,  then  it 
follows,  either  that  the  Crescent  was  correspondingly 
weak,  or  that,  not  being  weak,  she  must  have  found 
the  Cross  pretty  strong.  The  facit*o^  history  does  not 
here  coi  respond  with  the  numerical  items. 

Nothing  has  ever  surprised  us  more,  we  will  frankly 
own,  than  this  coincidence  of  authors  in  treating  the 
Byzantine  empire  as  feeble  and  crazy.  On  the  con- 
trary, to  us  it  is  clear  that  some  secret  and  preternatu- 
ral strength  it  must  have  had,  lurking  where  the  eye 
of  man  did  not  in  those  days  penetrate,  or  by  what 
miracle  did  it  undertake  our  universal  Christian  cause, 
fight  for  us  all,  keep  the  waters  open  from  freezing  us 
up,  and  through  nine  centuries  prevent  the  ice  of 
Mahometanism  from  closing  over  our  heads  for  ever .'' 
Yet  does  Mr.  Finlay  (p.  424)  describe  this  empire  as 
laboring,  in  A.  D.  623,  equally  with  Persia,  under  '  in- 
ternal weakness,'  and  as  '  equally  incapable  of  offering 
any  popular  or  national  resistance  to  an  active  or 
enterprising  enemy.'  In  this  Mr.  Finlay  does  but 
agree  with  other  able  writers  ;  but  he  and  they  should 
have  recollected,  that  hardly  had  that  very  year  623 
departed,  even  yet  the  knell  of  its  last  hour  was 
sounding  upon  the  winds,  when  this  effeminate  empire 
had  occasion  to  show  that  she  could  clothe  herself  with 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  297 

consuming  terrors,  as  a  belligerent  both  defensive  and 
aggressive.  In  the  absence  of  her  great  emperor,  and 
of  the  main  imperial  forces,  the  golden  capital  herself, 
by  her  own  resources,  routed  and  persecuted  into 
wrecks  a  Persian  army  that  bad  come  down  upon  her 
by  stealth  and  a  fraudulent  circuit.  Even  at  that  same 
period,  she  advanced  into  Persia  more  than  a  thousand 
miles  from  her  own  metropolis  in  Europe,  under  the 
blazing  ensigns  of  the  cross,  kicked  the  crown  of 
Persia  to  and  fro  like  a  tennis-ball,  upset  the  throne  of 
Artaxerxes,  countersigned  haughtily  the  elevation  of  a 
new  Basileus  more  friendly  to  herself,  and  then 
recrossed  the  Tigris  homewards,  after  having  torn 
forcibly  out  of  the  heart  and  palpitating  entrails  of 
Persia,  whatever  trophies  that  idolatrous  empire  had 
formerly  wrested  from  herself.  These  were  not  the 
acts  of  an  effeminate  kingdom.  In  the  language  of 
Wordsworth  we  may  say  — 

'  All  power  was  giv'n  her  in  the  dreadful  trance; 
Infidel  kings  she  wither'd  like  a  flame.' 

Indeed,  no  image  that  we  remember  can  do  justice 
to  the  first  of  these  acts,  except  that  Spanish  legend  of 
the  Cid,  which  assures  us  that,  long  after  the  death  of 
the  mighty  cavalier,  when  the  children  of  those  Moors 
who  had  fled  from  his  face  whilst  living,  w^ere  insulting 
the  marble  statue  above  his  grave,  suddenly  the  statue 
raised  its  right  arm,  stretched  out  its  marble  lance,  and 
drifted  the  heathen  dogs  like  snow.  The  mere  sanctity 
of  the  Christian  champion's  sepulchre  was  its  own 
protection  ;  and  so  we  must  suppose,  that,  when  the 
Persian  hosts  came  by  surprise  upon  Constantinople  — 


298  GREECE    UNDER   THE    ROMANS. 

her  natural  protector  being  absent  by  three  montlis' 
march  —  simply  the  golden  statues  of  the  mighty 
Csesars,  half  rising  on  their  thrones,  must  have  caused 
that  sudden  panic  which  dissipated  the  danger.  Hardly 
fifty  years  later,  Mr.  Finlay  well  knows  that  Constanti- 
nople again  stood  an  assault  —  not  from  a  Persian 
hourrah,  or  tempestuous  surprise,  but  from  a  vast 
expedition,  armaments  by  land  and  sea,  fitted  out 
elaborately  in  the  early  noontide  of  Mahometan  vigor 
—  and  that  assault,  also,  in  the  presence  of  the  caliph 
and  the  crescent,  was  gloriously  discomfited.  Now  if, 
in  the  moment  of  triumph,  some  voice  in  the  innume- 
rable crowd  had  cried  out,  '  How  long  shall  this  great 
Christian  breakwater,  against  which  are  shattered  into 
surge  and  foam  all  the  mountainous  billows  of  idolaters 
and  misbelievers,  stand  up  on  behalf  of  infant  Chris- 
tendom ?  '  and  if  from  the  clouds  some  trumpet  of 
prophecy  had  replied,  '  Even  yet  for  eight  hundred 
years ! '  could  any  man  have  persuaded  himself  that 
such  a  fortress  against  such  antogonists  —  such  a 
monument  against  a  millennium  of  fury  —  was  to  be 
classed  amongst  the  weak  things  of  this  earth  ?  This 
oriental  Rome,  it  is  true,  equally  with  Persia,  was 
liable  to  sudden  inroads  and  incursions.  But  the  dif- 
ference was  this  —  Persia  was  strongly  protected  in  all 
ages  by  the  wilderness  on  her  main  western  frontier ; 
if  this  were  passed,  and  a  hand-to-hand  conflict  suc- 
ceeded, where  light  cavalry  or  fugitive  archers  could 
be  of  little  value,  the  essential  weakness  of  the  Per- 
sian empire  then  betrayed  itself.  Her  sovereign  was 
assassinated,  and  peace  was  obtained  from  the  con- 
descension of  the  invader.     But  the  enemies  of  Con- 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  299 

stantinople,  Goths,  Avars,  Balgarians,  or  even  Persians, 
were  strong  only  by  their  weakness.  Being  contemp- 
tible, they  were  neglected  ;  being  chased,  they  made 
no  stand  ;  and  thus  only  they  escaped.  They  entered 
like  thieves  by  means  of  darkness,  and  escaped  like 
sheep  by  means  of  dispersion.  But,  if  caught,  they 
were  annihilated.  No ;  we  resume  our  thesis ;  we 
close  this  head  by  reiterating  our  correction  of  history  ; 
we  re-affirm  our  position  —  that  in  Eastern  Rome 
lay  the  salvation  of  Western  and  Central  Europe  ;  in 
Constantinople  "and  the  Propontis  lay  the  sine  qua  non 
condition  of  any  future  Christendom.  Emperor  and 
people  7nust  have  done  their  duty  ;  the  result,  the  vast 
extent  of  generations  surmounted,  furnish  the  trium- 
phant argument.  Finally,  indeed,  they  fell,  king  "and 
people,  shepherd  and  flock ;  but  by  that  time  their 
mission  was  fulfilled.  And  doubtless,  as  the  noble 
PaltEologus  lay  on  heaps  of  carnage,  with  his  noble 
people,  as  life  was  ebbing  away,  a  voice  from  heaven 
vSoundcd  in  his  ears  the  great  words  of  the  Hebrew 
prophet,  '  Behold  !  your  ^vork  is  done  ;  your  warfare 
is  accomplished.' 

III.  Such,  then,  being  the  unmerited  disparagement 
of  the  Byzantine  government,  and  so  great  the  ingrati- 
tude of  later  Christendom  to  that  sheltering  power 
under  which  themselves  enjoyed  the  leisure  of  a 
thousand  years  for  knitting  and  expanding  into  strong 
nations ;  on  the  other  hand,  what  is  to  be  thought  of 
the  Saracen  revolutionists  ?  Everywhere  it  has  passed 
for  a  lawful  postulate,  that  the  Saracen  conquests  pre- 
vailed, half  by  the  feebleness  of  the  Roman  govern- 
ment at  Constantinople,  and  half  by  the  preternatural 


200  GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

energy  infused  into  the  Arabs  by  their  false  prophet 
and  legislator.  In  either  of  its  faces,  this  theory  is 
falsified  by  a  steady  review  of  facts.  With  regard  to 
the  Saracens,  Mr.  Finlay  thinks  as  we  do,  and  argues 
that  they  prevailed  through  the  locals  or  sometimes  the 
casual,  weakness  of  their  immediate  enemies,  and 
rarely  through  any  strength  of  their  own.  We  must 
remember  one  fatal  weakness  of  the  Imperial  admin- 
istration in  those  days,  not  due  to  men  or  to  principles, 
but  entirely  to  nature  and  the  slow  growth  of  scientific 
improvements  —  viz.  :  the  difficulties  of  locomotion. 
As  respected  Syria,  Egypt,  Cyrenaica,  and  so  on  to 
the  most  western  provinces  of  Africa,  the  Saracens 
had  advantages  for  moving  rapidly  which  the  Cisesar 
had  not.  But  is  not  a  water  movement  speedier  than 
a  land  movement,  which  for  an  army  never  has  much 
exceeded  fourteen  miles  a-day  ?  Certainly  it  is ;  but 
in  this  case  there  were  two  desperate  defects  in  the 
imperial  control  over  that  water  service.  To  use  a 
fleet,  you  must  have  a  fleet;  but  their  whole  naval 
interest  had  been  starved  by  the  intolerable  costs  of  the 
Persian  war.  Immense  had  been  the  expenses^  of 
Heraclius,  and  annually  decaying  had  been  his  Asiatic 
revenues.  Secondly,  the  original  position  of  the  Arabs 
had  been  better  than  that  of  the  emperor,  in  every 
stage  of  the  warfare  which  so  suddenly  arose.  In 
Arabia  they  stood  nearest  to  Syria,  in  Syria  nearest  to 
Egypt,  in  Egypt  nearest  to  Cyrenaica.  AVhat  reason 
had  there  been  for  expecting  a  martial  legislator  at 
that  moment  in  Arabia,  who  should  fuse  and  sternly 
combine  her  distracted  tribes  ?  What  blame,  there- 
fore,   to  Heraclius,  that    Syria  —  the    first    object   of 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  201 

assault,  being  also  by  much  the  weakest  part  of  the 
empire,  and  immediately  after  the  close  of  a  desolating 
war  —  should  in  four  campaigns  be  found  indefen- 
sible ?  We  must  remember  the  unexampled  abrupt- 
ness of  the  Arabian  revolution.  The  year  sixteen 
hundred  and  twenty-two,  by  its  very  name  of  Hegira, 
does  not  record  a  triumph  but  a  humiliation.  In  that 
year,  therefore,  and  at  the  very  moment  when  Herac- 
lius  was  entering  upon  his  long  Persian  struggle,  Ma- 
homet was  yet  prostrate,  and  his  destiny  was  doubtful. 
Eleven  years  after,  viz.  in  six  hundred  and  thirty-three, 
the  prophet  was  dead  and  gone  ;  but  his  first  successor 
was  already  in  Syria  as  a  conqueror.  Such  had  been 
the  velocity  of  events.  The  Persian  war  had  then 
been  finished  by  three  years,  but  the  exhaustion  of  the 
empire  had  perhaps,  at  that  moment,  reached  its  maxi- 
mum. We  are  satisfied,  that  ten  years'  repose  from 
this  extreme  state  of  collapse  would  have  shown  us 
another  result.  Even  as  it  was,  and  caught  at  this 
enormous  disadvantage,  Heraclius  taught  the  robbers 
to  tremble,  and  would  have  exterminated  thein,  if  not 
baffled  by  two  irremediable  calamities,  neither  of  them 
due  to  any  act  or  neglect  of  his  own.  The  first  lay 
in  the  treason  of  his  lieutenants.  The  governors  of 
Damascus,  of  Aleppo,  of  Emesa,  of  Bostra,  of  Kin- 
nisrin,  all  proved  traitors.  The  root  of  this  evil  lay, 
probably,  in  the  disorders  following  the  Persian  inva- 
sion, which  had  made  it  the  perilous  interest  of  the 
emperor  to  appoint  great  officers  from  amongst  those 
who  had  a  local  influence.  Such  persons  it  might  have 
been  ruinous  too  suddenly  to  set  aside,  as,  in  the  event, 
it  proved  ruinous  to  employ  them.     A,  dilemma  of  this 


302  GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

kind,  ofTering  but  a  choice  of  evils,  belonged  to  the 
nature  of  any  Persian  war ;  and  that  particular  war 
was  bequeathed  to  Heraclius  by  the  management  of 
his  predecesors.  But  the  second  calamity  was  even 
more  fatal ;  it  lay  in  the  composition  of  the  Syrian 
population,  and  its  original  want  of  vital  cohesion.  For 
no  purpose  could  this  population  be  united  :  they  form- 
ed a  rope  of  sand.  There  was  the  distraction  of 
religion  (Jacobites,  Nestorians,  &c.) ;  there  was  the 
distraction  of  races  —  slaves  and  masters,  conquered 
and  conquerors,  modern  intruders  mixed,  but  not 
blended  with,  aboriginal  mountaineers.  Property  be- 
came the  one  principle  of  choice  between  the  two  gov- 
ernments. Where  was  protection  to  be  had  for  that  7 
Barbarous  as  were  the  Arabs,  they  saw  their  present 
advantage.  Often  it  would  happen  from  the  position 
of  the  armies,  that  they  could,  whilst  the  emperor 
could  not,  guarantee  the  instant  security  of  land  or 
of  personal  treasures ;  the  Arabs  could  also  promise, 
sometimes,  a  total  immunity  from  [taxes,  very  often  a 
diminished  scale  of  taxation,  always  a  remission  of 
arrears ;  none  of  which  demands  could  be  listened  to  by 
the  emperor,  partly  on  account  of  the  public  necessities, 
partly  from  jealousy  of  establishing  operative  prece- 
dents. For  religion,  again,  protection  was  more  easily 
obtained  in  that  day  from  the  Arab,  who  made  war  on 
Christianity,  than  from  the  Byzantine  emperor,  who 
was  its  champion.  What  were  the  different  sects  and 
subdivisions  of  Christianity  to  the  barbarian.?  Mono- 
physite,  Monothelite,  Eutychian,  or  Jacobite,  all  were 
to  him  as  the  scholastic  disputes  of  noble  and  intellec- 
tual Europe  to  the  camps  of  gypsies.     The  Arab  felt 


GREECE   UNDER   THE    ROMAKS.  303 

himself  to  be  the  depository  of  one  sublime  truth,  the 
unity  of  God.  His  mission,  therefore,  was  principally 
against  idolaters.  Yet  even  to  them  his  policy  was  to 
sell  toleration  for  tribute.  Clearly,  as  Mr.  Finlay  hints, 
this  was  merely  a  provisional  moderation,  meant  to  be 
laid  aside  when  sufficient  power  was  obtained ;  and  it 
was  laid  aside,  in  after  ages,  by  many  a  wretch  like 
Timor  or  Nadir  Shah.  Religion,  therefore,  and  prop- 
erty once  secured,  what  more  had  the  Syrians  to  seek  ? 
And  if  to  these  advantages  for  the  Saracens  we  add 
the  fact,  that  a  considerable  Arab  population  was  dis- 
persed through  Syria,  who  became  so  many  emissaries, 
spies,  and  decoys  for  their  countrymen,  it  does  great 
honor  to  the  emperor,  that  through  so  many  campaigns 
he  should  at  all  have  maintained  his  ground,  which  at 
last  he  resigned  only  under  the  despondency  caused  by 
almost  universal  treachery. 

The  Saracens,  therefore,  had  no  great  merit  even  in 
their  earliest  exploits  ;  and  the  impetus  of  their  move- 
ment forwards,  that  principle  of  proselytism  which 
carried  them  so  strongly  'ahead'  through  a  few  gen- 
erations, was  very  soon  brought  to  a  stop.  IVfr.  Finlay, 
in  our  mind,  does  right  to  class  these  barbarians  as 
'  socially  and  politically  little  better  than  the  Gothic, 
Hunnish,  and  Avar  monarchies.'  But,  on  considera- 
tion, the  Gothic  monarchy  embosomed  the  germs  of  a 
noble  civilization  ;  whereas  the  Saracens  have  never 
propagated  great  principles  of  any  kind,  nor  attained 
even  a  momentary  grandeur  in  their  institutions,  ex- 
cept where  coalescing  with  a  higher  or  more  ancient 
civilization. 

Meantime,  ascending  from  the  earliest  Mahometans 


304  GREECE   UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

to  their  prophet,  what  are  we  to  think  of  him?  Was 
Mahomet  a  great  man  ?  We  think  not.  The  case 
was  thus :  the  Arabian  tribes  had  long  stood  ready, 
like  dogs  held  in  a  leash,  for  a  start  after  distant  game. 
It  was  not  Mahomet  who  gave  them  that  impulse. 
But  next,  what  was  it  that  had  hindered  the  Arab 
tribes  from  obeying  the  impulse  ?  Simply  this,  that 
they  were  always  in  feud  with  each  other  ;  so  that  their 
expeditions,  beginning  in  harmony,  were  sure  to  break 
up  in  anger  on  the  road.  What  they  needed  was, 
some  one  grand  compressing  and  unifying  principle, 
such  as  the  Roman  found  in  the  destinies  of  his  city. 
True  ;  but  this,  you  say,  they  found  in  the  sublime 
principle  that  God  was  one,  and  had  appointed  them  to 
be  the  scourges  of  all  who  denied  it.  Their  mission 
was  to  cleanse  the  earth  from  Polytheism ;  and,  as 
ambassadors  from  God,  to  tell  the  nations  —  '  Ye  shall 
have  no  other  Gods  but  me.'  That  was  grand  ;  and 
that  surely  they  had  from  Mahomet  ?  Perhaps  so ; 
but  where  did  he  get  it }  He  stole  it  from  the  Jewish 
Scriptures,  and  from  the  Scriptures  no  less  than  from 
the  traditions  of  the  Christians.  Assuredly,  then,  the 
first  projecting  impetus  was  not  impressed  upon  Islam- 
ism  by  Mahomet.  This  lay  in  a  revealed  truth ;  and 
by  Mahomet  it  was  furtively  translated  to  his  own  use 
from  those  oracles  which  held  it  in  keeping.  But  pos- 
sibly, if  not  the  principle  of  motion,  yet  at  least  the 
steady  conservation  of  this  motion  was  secured  to  Is- 
lamism  by  Mahomet.  Granting  (you  will  say)  that 
the  launch  of  this  religion  might  be  due  to  an  alien 
inspiration,  yet  still  the  steady  movement  onwards  of 
this  religion   through  some   centuries,   might  be   due 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  305 

exclusively  to  the  code  of  laws  bequeathed  by  Maho- 
met in  the  Koran.  And  this  has  been  the  opinion  of 
many  European  scholars.  They  fancy  that  Mahomet, 
however  worldly  and  sensual  as  the  founder  of  a  pre- 
tended revelation,  was  wise  in  the  wisdom  of  this 
world  ;  and  that,  if  ridiculous  as  a  prophet,  he  was 
worthy  of  veneration  as  a  statesman.  He  legislated 
well  and  presciently,  they  imagine,  for  the  interests  of 
a  remote  posterity.  Now,  upon  that  question  let  us 
hear  Mr.  Finlay.  He,  when  commenting  upon  the 
steady  resistance  offered  to  the  Saracens  by  the  Afri- 
can Christians  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  —  a 
resistance  which  terminated  disastrously  for  both  sides 
—  the  poor  Christians  being  exterminated,  and  the 
Moslem  invaders  being  robbed  of  an  indigenous  work- 
ing population,  naturally  inquires  what  it  was  that  led 
to  so  tragical  a  result.  The  Christian  natives  of  these 
provinces  were,  in  a  political  condition,  little  favorable 
to  belligerent  efforts  ;  and  there  cannot  be  much  doubt, 
that,  with  any  wisdom  or  any  forbearance  on  the  part 
of  the  intruders,  both  parties  might  soon  have  settled 
down  into  a  pacific  compromise  of  their  feuds.  In- 
stead of  this,  the  cimeter  was  invoked  and  worshipped 
as  the  sole  possible  arbitrator ;  and  truce  there  was 
none  until  the  silence  of  desolation  brooded  over  those 
once  fertile  fields.  How  savage  was  the  fanaticism, 
and  how  blind  the  worldly  wisdom,  which  could  have 
co-operated  to  such  a  result !  The  cause  must  have 
lain  in  the  unaccommodating  nature  of  the  Mahometan 
institutions,  in  the  bigotry  of  the  Mahometan  leaders, 
and  in  the  defect  of  expansive  views  on  the  part  of 
their  legislator.  He  had  not  provided  even  for  other 
20 


306         GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

elimates  than  that  of  his  own  sweltering  sty  in  the 
Hedjas,  or  for  manners  more  polished,  or  for  institu- 
tions more  philosophic,  than  those  of  his  own  sun- 
baked Ishmaelites.  '  The  construction  of  the  political 
government  of  the  Saracen  empire'  —  says  Mr.  Fin- 
lay  (p.  462-3) — 'was  imperfect,  and  shows  that 
Mahomet  had  neither  contemplated  extensive  foreign 
conquests,  nor  devoted  the  energies  of  his  powerful 
mind  to  the  consideration  of  the  questions  of  adminis- 
tration which  would  arise  out  of  the  difficult  task  of 
ruling  a  numerous  and  wealthy  population,  possessed 
of  property,  but  deprived  of  equal  rights.'  He  then 
shows  how  the  whole  power  of  the  state  settled  into 
the  hands  of  a  chief  priest  —  systematically  irre- 
sponsible. When,  therefore,  that  momentary  state  of 
responsibility  had  passed  away,  which  was  created 
(like  the  state  of  martial  law)  '  by  national  feelings, 
military  companionship,  and  exalted  enthusiasm,'  the 
administration  of  the  caliphs  became  '  far  more  op- 
pressive than  that  of  the  Roman  empire.'  It  is  in 
fact  an  insult  to  the  majestic  Romans,  if  we  should 
place  them  seriously  in  the  balance  with  savages  like 
the  Saracens..  The  Romans  were  essentially  the  lead- 
ers of  civilization,  according  to  the  possibilities  then 
existing ;  for  their  earliest  usages  and  social  forms 
involved  a  high  civilization,  whilst  promising  a  higher : 
whereas  all  Moslem  nations  have  described  a  petty 
arch  of  national  civility  —  soon  reaching  its  apex,  and 
rapidly  barbarizing  backwards.  This  fatal  gravitation 
towards  decay  and  decomposition  in  Mahometan  insti- 
tutions, which,  at  this  day,  exhibits  to  the  gaze  of  man- 
kind one  uniform  spectacle  of  Mahometan  ruins,  all 


GREECE    UNDER   THE    ROMANS.  307 

the  great  Moslem  nations  being  already  in  a  Strulhrug 
state,  and  held  erect  only  by  the  colossal  support  of 
Christian  powers,  could  not,  as  a  reversionary  evil, 
have  been  healed  by  the  Arabian  prophet.  His  own 
religious  principles  would  have  prevented  that,  for  they 
offer  a  permanent  bounty  on  sensuality ;  so  that  every 
man  who  serves  a  Mahometan  state  faithfully  and  bril- 
liantly at  twenty-five,  is  incapacitated  at  thirty-five  for 
any  further  service,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  rewards 
which  he  receives  from  the  state.  Within  a  very  few 
years,  every  public  servant  is  usually  emasculated  by 
that  unlimited  voluptuousness  which  equally  the  Mos- 
lem princes  and  the  common  Prophet  of  all  Moslems 
countenance  as  the  proper  object  of  human  pursuit. 
Here  is  the  mortal  ulcer  of  Islamism,  which  can  never 
cleanse  itself  from  death  and  the  odor  of  death.  A 
political  ulcer  would  or  might  have  found  restoration 
for  itself;  but  this  ulcer  is  higher  and  deeper:  —  it 
lies  in  the  religion,  which  is  incapable  of  reform  :  it  is 
an  ulcer  reaching  as  high  as  the  paradise  which  Islam- 
ism promises,  and  deep  as  the  hell  which  it  creates. 
We  repeat,  that  Mahomet  could  not  effectually  have 
neutralized  a  poison  which  he  himself  had  introduced 
into  the  circulation  and  life-blood  of  'his  I\Ioslem 
economy.  The  false  prophet  was  forced  to  reap  as  he 
had  sown.  But  an  evil  which  is  certain,  may  be 
retarded ;  and  ravages  which  tend  finally  to  confusion, 
may  be  limited  for  many  generations.  Now,  in  the 
case  of  the  African  provincials  which  we  have  noticed, 
we  see  an  original  incapacity  of  Islamism,  even  in 
its  palmy  condition,  for  amalgamating  with  any  supe' 
rior  culture.     And  the  specific  action  of  Mahometan- 


308  GREECE   UNDER   THE    ROMANS. 

ism  in  the  African  case,  as  contrasted  with  the  Roman 
economy  which  it  supplanted,  is  thus  exhibited  by  Mr. 
Finlay  in  a  most  instructive  passage,  where  every 
negation  on  the  Mahometan  side  is  made  to  suggest  the 
countervailing  usage  positively  on  the  side  of  the  Ro- 
mans. O  children  of  Romulus !  how  noble  do  you 
appear  when  thus  fiercely  contrasted  with  the  wild 
boars  who  desolated  your  vineyards  !  '  No  local  mag- 
istrates elected  by  the  people,  and  no  parish  priests 
connected  by  their  feelings  and  interests  both  with  their 
superiors  and  inferiors,  bound  society  together  by  com- 
mon ties  ;  and  no  system  of  legal  administration,  inde- 
pendent of  the  military  and  financial  authorities,  pre- 
served the  property  of  the  people  from  the  rapacity  of 
the  government.' 

Such,  we  are  to  understand,  was  not  the  Mahometan 
system  ;  such  had  been  the  system  of  Rome.  '  Social- 
ly and  politically,'  proceeds  the  passage,  '  the  Saracen 
empire  was  little  better  than  the  Gothic,  Hunnish, 
and  Avar  monarchies  ;  and  that  it  proved  more  dura- 
ble, with  almost  equal  oppression,  is  to  be  attributed  to 
the  powerful  enthusiasm  of  Mahomet's  religion,  which 
tempered  for  some  time  its  avarice  and  tyranny.' 
The  same  sentiment  is  repeated  still  more  emphati- 
cally at  p.  468  — '  The  political  policy  of  the  Saracens 
was  of  itself  utterly  barbarous  ;  and  it  only  caught  a 
passing  gleam  of  justice  from  the  religious  feeling  of 
their  prophet's  doctrines.' 

Thus  far,  therefore,  it  appears  that  Mahometanism 
is  not  much  indebted  to  its  too  famous  founder ;  it 
owes  to  him  a  principle,  viz.  the  unity  of  God,  which, 
merely  through  a  capital  blunder,  it  fancies  peculiar 


GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS.  309 

to  itself.  Nothing  but  the  grossest  ignorance  in  Ma- 
homet, nothing  but  the  grossest  non-acquaintance 
with  Greek  authors  on  the  part  of  the  Arabs,  could 
have  created  or  sustained  the  delusion  current  amongst 
that  illiterate  people  —  that  it  was  themselves  only  who 
rejected  Polytheism.  Had  but  one  amongst  the  per- 
sonal enemies  of  Mahomet  been  acquainted  with 
Greek,  there  was  an  end  of  the  new  religion  in  the 
first  moon  of  its  existence.  Once  open  the  eyes  of  the 
Arabs  to  the  fact,  that  Christians  had  anticipated  them 
in  this  great  truth  of  the  divine  unity ^and  Mahometan- 
ism  could  only  have  ranked  as  a  subdivision  of  Chris- 
tianity. Mahomet  would  have  ranked  only  as  a  Chris- 
tian heresiarch  or  schismatic  ;  such  as  Nestorius  or 
Marcian  at  one  time,  such  as  Arius  or  Pelagius  at 
another.  In  his  character  of  theologian,  therefore,  Ma- 
homet was  simply  the  most  memorable  of  blunderers, 
supported  in  his  blunders  by  the  most  unlettered  of 
nations.  In  his  other  character  of  legislator,  we  have 
seen  that  already  the  earliest  stages  of  Mahometan  ex- 
perience exposed  decisively  his  ruinous  imbecility. 
Where  a  rude  tribe  offered  no  resistance  to  his  system, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  their  barbarism  suggested  no 
motive  for  resistance,  it  could  be  no  honor  to  prevail. 
And  where,  on  the  other  hand,  a  higher  civilization 
had  furnished  strong  points  of  repulsion  to  his  system, 
it  appears  plainly  that  this  pretended  apostle  of  social 
improvements  had  devised  or  hinted  no  readier  mode 
of  conciliation  than  by  putting  to  the  sword  all  dissen- 
tients. He  starts  as  a  theological  reformer,  with  a 
fancied  defiance  to  the  world  which  was  no  defiance 
at  all,  being  exactly  what  Christians  had  believed  for 


310  GREECE    UNDER    THE    ROMANS. 

six  centuries,  and  Jews  for  six-and-twenty-  He 
starts  as  a  political  reformer,  with  a  fancied  concili- 
ation to  the  world,  which  was  no  conciliation  at  all, 
but  was  sure  to  provoke  imperishable  hostility  where- 
soever it  had  any  effect  at  all. 

We  have  thus  reviewed  some  of  the  more  splendid 
aspects  connected  with  Mr.  Finlay's  theme  ;  but  that 
theme,  in  its  entire  compass,  is  worthy  of  a  far  more 
extended  investigation  than  our  own  limits  will  allow, 
or  than  the  historical  curiosity  of  the  world  (misdirect- 
ed here  as  in  so  many  other  cases)  has  hitherto  de- 
manded. The  Greek  race,  suffering  a  long  occulta- 
tion  under  the  blaze  of  the  Roman  empire,  into  which 
for  a  time  it  had  been  absorbed,  but  again  emerging 
from  this  blaze,  and  reassuming  a  distinct  Greek 
agency  and  influence,  offers  a  subject  great  by  its  own 
inherent  attractions,  and  separately  interesting  by  the 
unaccountable  neglect  which  it  has  suffered.  To  have 
overlooked  this  subject,  is  one  amongst  the  capital 
oversights  of  Gibbon.  To  have  rescued  it  from  utter 
oblivion,  and  to  have  traced  an  outline  for  its  better 
illumination,  is  the  peculiar  merit  of  Mr.  Finlay.  His 
greatest  fault  is  —  to  have  been  careless  or  slovenly  in 
the  niceties  of  classical  and  philological  precision.  His 
greatest  praise,  and  a  very  great  one  indeed,  is  —  to 
have  thrown  the  light  of  an  original  philosophic  sa- 
gacity upon  a  neglected  province  of  history,  indispen- 
sable to  the  arrondissement  of  Pagan  archseology. 


r 


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